


A Seiche of Salt and Diamond

by BynSpyn



Series: For Elise [3]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 01:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 241,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30081711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BynSpyn/pseuds/BynSpyn
Summary: Mabel, Dipper, and Pacifica fly to South Carolina to meet up with Samuel Southeast for the annual Fourth of July Party. However, when Stan and Ford show up bearing news of strange concentrations of weirdness forming around the globe, they embark on a seafaring voyage aboard the Stan o’ War II. The obstacles they encounter on the way force them to confront their own fears and insecurities, as well as their hopes and dreams for their future relationships.
Relationships: Pacifica Northwest/Dipper Pines
Series: For Elise [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1873972
Comments: 28
Kudos: 26





	1. Introduction

Hello everyone, and welcome back to _For Elise_! This story is slightly different from the previous installments, and deserves a unique introduction.

Firstly, as always, I recommend that you read both Emerald in the Sky and Eyes of Rime before beginning A Seiche of Salt and Diamond. _For Elise_ is a cohesive series, and each installment builds on the others and the essential storytelling core of Gravity Falls—I don’t want anyone to be lost!

Secondly, I would like to draw attention to the emotional core of this story up front—even though we’re all here for Dipcifica, the central conflict is Mabel’s. Upon reading the comments left on Eyes of Rime _,_ I realized that it was time to take a step back and really flesh her out as her own character, so she can contribute more fully to the story in the future. This shift in focus is ultimately a minor deviation in the overall arc of the series.

Despite the focus on Mabel’s conflict, however, the vast majority of the narrative is filtered through the perspective of either Dipper or Pacifica. I have written this work with the same attention and care as I have the previous installments, and believe that the payoff is just as emotionally rewarding.

I am unsure of what the reaction to this shift will be—the change is dramatic and punchy, and only builds throughout the story. I can easily see how the alteration in conflict may be off-putting for some. At the same time, I can see people really liking it—this will be the only time in _For Elise_ where we see Dipper and Pacifica simply living their lives as a couple and helping others, instead of dealing with their own problems. In the absence of conflict between them, the pure wholesome fluff can shine through. Regardless of your feelings on this installment (and I myself am not entirely sure how proud I am of this one yet), my previous works remained unchanged.

Following the results of a poll on Reddit, I have decided to drop the entire story at one time. The downside of this is that it will be more difficult to track how people are reacting to the individual chapters in real time. As such, I encourage you to comment throughout the story as you read it, whenever you have questions or something catches your attention. By seeing how you react to different plot and character beats, I will be able to more effectively integrate your feedback into any future installments in the series.

I was originally intending for this work to clock in at around 140,000 words. As I wrote it, however, it grew immensely, and took globetrotting twists and turns that I myself wasn’t expecting, eventually growing longer than both Eyes of Rime and Emerald in the Sky combined. I am unsure if this work reaches the same climactic, emotional highs of the previous installments—compared to the tightness of the conflicts in my other work, this one is messy and ambiguous—just like real life.

So, with that, I invite you to begin A Seiche of Salt and Diamond _._ It is a different experience than my prior writing, but I believe it will be a positive one. Just like with Eyes of Rime _,_ I will be actively responding to any comments that are left on this story. I look forward to reading your feedback, no matter what form it takes!


	2. Airport

Mabel clutched her stomach with worry as she looked out across the open asphalt, bundling the pale red fabric of her sweater into her fists. In the distance, she could see the sharp silhouettes of planes as they descended to the earth, the distant rumble of their engines growing to a trembling roar as they passed overhead.

The early morning sun appeared pink, filtered through both the thin clouds and the hazy glass of Mabel’s sunglasses. As they rode past the signs directing traffic on where to go, she tapped her fingers nervously against the windows. With her other hand, she gently scratched Waddles’s head, who nestled closely against her. She swallowed as she read the prominent nameplate for the airport— _Redmond Municipal Airport – Roberts Field._

The entire town of Redmond sat prominently on the top of a large stony plateau, providing an unobstructed view of the geography for miles around. There weren’t many trees, and the ground was largely barren and dusty compared with the verdant green of the forests. Off to the west, the towering peaks of the Cascades, which sheltered the valley of Gravity Falls within them, stood as resolute, ever-watching guardians.

“Hey,” whispered Pacifica, gently bumping up against the brunette with her shoulder. Her blue eyes were gentle and concerned, looking Mabel up and down. “Are you okay? You seem to have more energy than usual.”

“Pacifica,” Mabel replied condescendingly, straightening her sunglasses and trying to plaster a smile over her stressed expression. “Come on--it’s me. When have I ever _not_ had energy? I sucked all of Dipper’s happiness away in the womb, and I’ve kept it ever since.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Pacifica rolled her eyes, smiling. Mabel at least still had her sense of humor. “But this energy is different. Normally it’s happy and enthusiastic—sometimes way too enthusiastic,” she smirked, remembering the entire history of her friendship with the twins. “Is something bothering you about this trip?”

“No, no,” defended Mabel, squeezing Waddles’s ear and causing him to grunt mildly in discomfort. Mabel immediately winced and withdrew her hand. “Why would I be nervous? It’s not like there are any stakes to this. There’s nothing that could go horribly wrong, dooming me to a life of pain and suffering.” She laughed nervously. Waddles turned his head, making eye contact with Pacifica—the pig and the blonde were in agreement that Mabel was hiding something.

“Is this about Sam?” Pacifica whispered, trying to keep a serious expression. “I told you, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

After the Christmas morning that Pacifica and Sam had shared with the rest of the Pines family after the shapeshifter had been defeated, the remaining week and a half of winter break had seemed to go by in a flash. The snowfall made exploring in the valley difficult, so they had all largely remained inside.

The Southeast family had only been in town for one more day, but Sam was more than happy to spend that time cleaning up the laboratory space beneath the Mystery Shack and being regaled with the tales of everything that had happened in the building. He had shown a genuine interest in the work that Dipper and Ford were doing, and had already volunteered to donate all of the resources that Ford could possibly need in order to reconstruct a functioning version of the teleportation engine.

Mabel, for her part, had spent the day dragging Waddles around on a makeshift stretcher. He had quickly grown too large for her to lift, but she wasn’t about to leave him out of the festivities. Waddles had been content to let Mabel move him wherever she liked—he didn’t have to work, and got an endless supply of snacks and head scratches as he recovered from the wounds the shapeshifter had given him.

There had been several times during the cleanup when Pacifica had glanced over to Waddles, only to find Sam and Mabel crouched next to him and talking in hushed tones. She wasn’t sure what all they were talking about, but at one point they had both looked at her and broken into laughter—Pacifica shook her head in response, imagining that they were discussing the time travel misadventures that had led Mabel to adopt Waddles. Pacifica was unaware that such shenanigans had taken place at the time, of course, but Dipper had filled her in afterwards.

It seemed to Pacifica that Mabel and Sam had good chemistry, even though they had only had a few hours to get to know each other. Her mind had instantly flown to the possibility of getting them together, just as Mabel had helped her and Dipper. However, Pacifica knew that she didn’t have the same matchmaking skills that Mabel did, and it was possible that it wasn’t romance she had seen. Both Mabel and Sam had very outgoing, friendly personalities, and Waddles was good at bringing all kinds of people happiness—possibly, Pacifica had misread the room.

Still, with that kind of easy company, it was strange to her that Mabel seemed nervous about seeing Sam again. She also knew that Sam had regularly texted all of them over the past few months. Pacifica herself was eagerly looking forward to the vacation, especially since Dipper and Sam seemed to have buried the hatchet. She wasn’t sure exactly what had been said in the lounge after Dipper had spilled champagne on her at the Christmas party, but it has brought the boys much closer together. She was just grateful that Sam was no longer a secret weighing on her mind.

“It’s definitely not about Sam!” yelped Mabel, before quieting down. “Definitely not about Sam. Nope, not at all. What would I have to be nervous about there?” Pacifica narrowed her eyes at Mabel, causing Mabel’s eyes to flash around the interior of the truck as a drop of sweat beaded up on her temples.

“Stop harassing her, Pacifica,” chastised Dipper from the front seat. “She’s never been on a plane before. I’m sure that’s all there is to it.”

“For all the stuff you two have bothered me about over the years,” smiled Pacifica, leaning forward to flick Dipper on the back of the head, “I ought to be able to harass you some.” Dipper pulled his cap down tighter over his chocolate hair and turned around to give his girlfriend a sharp glance, though the twinkle in his eyes gave away the joke. Pacifica shook her head in response.

Dipper sat in the middle of the front seat, sandwiched in between Soos in the driver’s seat, and Melody on the passenger’s side. It was a tight squeeze, given Soos’s large and joyful frame and Melody’s eight-and-a-half month pregnant stomach. Dipper himself seemed to have sprouted another inch over the past six months, along with the steady broadening of his shoulders. Slowly, he was approaching Sam in stature, though it was unlikely he would ever fully catch the older boy.

Mabel had been the obvious candidate to sit up front, since she had the narrowest frame out of anyone, but she had claimed that she needed to spend as much time with Waddles as she could before they parted for the week. Pacifica had volunteered to take the bench seat, since she remained much, much shorter than everyone else in the truck, but Dipper had refused to let her do so—it was pointlessly chivalrous, but he didn’t want to subject Pacifica to the worst seat in the vehicle.

Dipper had taken Soos’s old truck gratefully in exchange for a bag of Corncornos, and had mounted Francine’s salvaged toolbox on the back. Francine herself, sadly, had been retired to the junkyard after she had crashed into the fallen tree on that cold December night. There were some things that even Soos couldn’t fix. Still, Dipper had been respectful during the funeral—he had placed a solemn note inside of her glove box, letting anyone who cared to read it know exactly how magnificent a truck Francine had been. He still hadn’t decided on a name for his new vehicle.

Still, Soos’s new truck was beautiful—a Ram 1500, painted bright cherry red. He had gotten it used, but under his masterful hands, the engine ran like new. Getting the mysterious stains out of the cloth seats had taken some more work, but there were some industrial-power cleaning solvents in the lab that Ford had been more than happy to let him borrow.

They had piled into the vehicle while it was still dark, wanting to get a head start in order to make it to their flight with plenty of time to spare. Given that they would also be flying four time zones ahead, they needed all the time they could get.

The three teenagers were currently on the way to Charleston, South Carolina, at Sam’s invitation, for the annual Fourth of July Party. It was only June 27th, but they all wanted to have enough time to explore the city and spend time together before the heavy expectations of the Northwests and Southeasts ruined the fun.

Normally, Pacifica would have flown first class with her parents the night before the party and magnificent fireworks display, but she much preferred to ride coach with her friends than first class with her family. Her parents had been reticent to let her go flying with the twins with no supervision, but they relented once they got personal assurances from Sam that he would keep them all safe and in line. Sam had kept what happened at the Christmas party a masterful secret, so he still had credit with Preston and Priscilla.

Up until now, the summer had been going quite well—Dipper and Mabel had returned to Gravity Falls as soon as their school got out, and the trio had spent the entire summer together. It hadn’t all been fun and games, though.

Dipper had spent a large portion of his time in the laboratory beneath the Mystery Shack, continuing Ford’s investigations into the weirdness naturally found in the town. Using his new truck, he had made several careful excursions to Crash Site Omega in order to harvest materials for new construction, just so there would always be some metal on hand. 

However, his current passion project was figuring out how to protect the creatures of the Falls from any malicious people that wished to exploit them. Sam’s desire to conserve the beaches of the Lowcountry had worn off on him. The Gravity Well around the town prevented the creatures from leaving, which meant that they couldn’t be poached or trafficked, but there was always the possibility of unscrupulous characters moving into town.

To solve this problem, he had taken inspiration from the tracking chip that Pacifica had given him on his fourteenth birthday to invent a new means of mapping weirdness. Using alien tech, he had created a small device, a square inch in size, that sent out periodic pulses only able to be detected by the equipment in Ford’s laboratory. From there, signals would be sent out to the Weslees, allowing Dipper and Ford to track the movements of weirdness distribution in the valley in almost real time. 

Affixing the tracking chips to small bracelets had been the easy part—getting the creatures of the town to agree to wear them had been substantially more difficult. Whenever Pacifica had been able to get out of work, she had accompanied Dipper on his expeditions into the forests. Eventually, they were able to get the manotaurs, unicorns, and gnomes to agree to wear them. The manotaurs had been persuaded by Dipper’s previous exploits and a bribe of meat, while Pacifica was able to convince the unicorns that the chips were the most fashionable new trend in the outside world.

The gnomes were more challenging—Jeff only agreed to tell his underlings to wear the bracelets after Pacifica gave him a kiss. Dipper was very adamant that Pacifica didn’t have to do it, and that they could just bully Jeff into agreeing by using a dog whistle, but Pacifica knew that violence wouldn’t solve anything. Thankfully, Jeff hadn’t specified that the kiss had to be on the lips, so a brief peck to the top of the head was enough to fulfill her commitments. Jeff wasn’t happy, but held up his end of the bargain.

After they got back from their trip to South Carolina, Dipper had his sights set on tranquilizing a Gremloblin. Pacifica was nervous about that, since Mabel had told her about the consequences of accidentally looking into its eyes, but that was a problem to worry about later. For now, she was going to savor the opportunity to spend a week with her friends.

The summer had been productive for Pacifica as well—she had gotten a raise at Greasy’s Diner, and had been given some creative control over the menu. Lazy Susan still had the final veto power, since she didn’t want Pacifica to accidentally turn the joint into a fancy restaurant, but Pacifica had still been able to make some improvements. There were some fancier cheeses, and she was slowly but surely introducing the townsfolk to the concept of aioli.

The biggest development was the introduction of a rotating menu of higher-end items. Every month, a new fancy item would show up—so far, there had been crème brulee, Japanese mushrooms stuffed with a combination of sausage and cheese, freshly baked croissants with échiré butter, and a lobster frittata. It took a lot of work for Pacifica to source the ingredients cheaply enough to justify serving them, and most of the dishes still lost money. But, the rotating menu was such a big hit that the additional business Greasy’s got more than made up for the lost revenue.

The one catch was that Pacifica didn’t trust any of the other cooks to make the dishes up to her standards. She had started coming in early in the mornings to prepare everything, and now spent more time in the kitchen than she did serving. Thankfully, Lazy Susan let her go whenever they ran out of their special dishes for the day—and, in most cases, that was fairly early. Pacifica was then more than happy to spend the afternoon exploring with Dipper before collapsing onto his shoulder in exhaustion while sitting on the couch—it was a satisfied and pleased exhaustion.

Mabel has taken over much of Melody’s work at the Mystery Shack, making sure the pregnant woman got as much rest as she could. Melody insisted that she could still work, but her lack of earnest protest made it clear that she was grateful for the opportunity to take the weight off of her feet. Still, she ran the books at the counter and worked the register while sitting on a stool.

Once the baby was born—and it was due in the next week or two—Mabel would no doubt kick things into high gear to make sure everyone was provided for. Dipper knew that he would have to pick up some of the slack as well, which is why he had been working in the laboratory so earnestly for the first part of the summer.

Everyone had told Melody that she hadn’t had to accompany them to the airport—Soos was more than capable of taking them there and driving back on his own—but she had insisted on coming along anyway. That way, if something did happen, she would be there—to either help or be helped, depending on how things went.

Still, everyone fidgeted in their seats as they approached the terminal, more eager than they would admit to escape the confines of the truck and get out into open space so they could stretch their legs. Since Dipper, Mabel, and Pacifica were about to board a plane with even less legroom, they needed all of the blood flowing that they could get.

Pacifica turned back towards Mabel, surprised to hear that she had never flown. The twins were about to turn seventeen, after all.

“But, is that true?” asked Pacifica, turning back to Mabel. “Have you never been in a plane before?”

“Yes! That’s exactly it,” replied Mabel, grateful to have something other than Sam to pin her anxiety on. “I mean, I’ve been in a plane before. But it was in a museum. On the ground. Not going up.”

“Oh,” sighed Pacifica, half disappointed and half relieved that there was such a mundane explanation. “I’ve been flying places for as long as I can remember, so I never really had a chance to be nervous. It was always just a part of my life.”

“Well, I do have a fear of heights,” acknowledged Mabel, clasping her hands in front of her. “After that video game hunk Dipper conjured almost tore down the water tower, I have a healthy respect for not falling to my death.”

“That’s a reasonable fear!” smiled Pacifica, taking Mabel’s hand and finding it clammy. She was trying to be as calm and mature as possible, but wasn’t sure she was pulling it off. “But I promise that planes are pretty much the safest way to travel. And, once you’re actually in the air, you can barely feel anything at all! Unless you hit turbulence, but that’s actually pretty rare.”

“Rare as in… how rare?” asked Mabel timidly.

“Well, it’s on every flight,” replied Dipper from the front before Pacifica had a chance to. “But it makes up way less than a single percent of most trips. There’s always a little, but never that much.”

“There doesn’t need to be a lot!” mumbled Mabel. Pacifica narrowed her eyes again suspiciously—she wasn’t sure how much of this fear Mabel was playing up in order to throw her and Dipper off the trail of her anxiety over Sam. Still, Mabel had never been shy over her crushes before, and Pacifica saw no reason why she would start now, so it would be best to treat the fear of heights as legitimate. “One burst is enough to make the tin can go _wheee_!” she continued, whistling and spiraling her finger in the air, mimicking a plane tumbling to the ground.

“I’ve flown hundreds of times, and I’ve never gone _wheee,”_ replied Pacifica, mimicking the gesture Mabel had just made. She couldn’t whistle, though, so she made her voice as high as it could possibly go, earning an amused smile from Mabel. “The worst turbulence I ever had was flying into Newark. Things were shaking pretty bad, but the pilot landed the plane without a care in the world.” Pacifica looked at Mabel, who had started to pick at her fingernails, and decided to open up the floor to other conversation.

“What about you guys?” she asked the front seat, as everyone adjusted and prepared to answer.

“I’ve only flown once,” answered Dipper, “and it was to Saint Louis for that math competition. The only time I was really nervous was when the plane had just taken off and it was turning to get on the proper course. That, and when you start descending, there’s a brief moment of weightlessness that’s terrifying if it catches you unaware. But I’m still here!”

“You’re not doing a great job of helping, Dipper,” Pacifica chastised. She was tempted to flick him on the head again, but kept her hands to herself. There would be plenty of time to annoy each other on the plane.

“Oh, dude, don’t worry,” said Soos, holding up a hand casually. “I’ve been all over the place.”

“Soos, you have flown to Portland five times, and that’s been it,” laughed Melody, closing her eyes. “And that was just to see me.”

“Yeah!” replied Soos. “And that one time for Christmas where I just accidentally met you at the airport because you had flown to Gravity Falls to surprise me!”

“We should have coordinated better,” sighed Melody. “I could have saved a hundred bucks.”

“A hundred bucks isn’t that much,” replied Soos. “Not when you’re handling it. You’re the ultimate budget queen.”

“Thanks for that,” Melody smiled, unable to even pretend to be upset. “But the point is, Mabel, that everyone here has flown, and we’re all still here. Big planes, small planes, across the ocean, over land. The air’s the same everywhere.”

“And really, the air is just a cool way to travel!” exclaimed Dipper enthusiastically. “I mean, think of it. We, monkeys, have figured out how to strap fire to an aluminum tube and keep it in the sky! That’s amazing!”

“You want to know what’s amazing, dude?” added Soos, lightly leaning against Dipper. Dipper, crushed between Soos and Melody, sputtered as he tried to catch his breath. “That moment when you’re going down the runway and the engines kick into high gear and you get pressed back into your seat! That’s awesome!”

“It really is!” answered Dipper, nodding his head and leaning forward as the terminal came into view. It was a small airport, with only one central building, so there was no confusion about where they needed to go. Pacifica looked down at Waddles, and then back up at Mabel.

“And Mabel,” Pacifica said, leaning over to pat Mabel on the leg. “We’re all sitting together in the same row. We’re all going to be right together. And, if you like, you can take the window seat. It might be nerve-wracking to watch as we go up, but I think that it’s better if you can see what’s happening. Plus, once you get above the clouds, it is really pretty.”

“Okay,” sighed Mabel, placing her hand on top of Pacifica’s. As she spoke, Soos pulled to a stop in front of the terminal and unlocked the doors. “Let’s do this.”

“I promise you’re not going to regret it,” Pacifica smiled as she undid her seatbelt, Waddles’s ears perking up at the commotion around him. “We’re going to have so much fun.” Mabel returned the smile weakly.

Pacifica opened the door, and immediately winced as a pulse of burning hot air raced across her skin. Despite the sun only having recently risen, the temperature was already in the low eighties, and would only be climbing. She gingerly stepped onto the asphalt and walked around the back of the truck, where Soos had started to lift their luggage out of the bed.

“Why is it so hot?” complained Dipper as he hopped out of the passenger side door, following Melody. “It is seven-fifteen in the morning, and this is completely unnecessary!”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so hot if you weren’t wearing jeans and a jacket,” snorted Pacifica as she set their luggage up in a line on the sidewalk. She had chosen to pack lightly—only two full size suitcases, and she was going to need her boyfriend’s assistance to get them into the airport.

“It’s going to be cold once we’re in the air!” Dipper grumbled. “And I’d rather be a little hot now instead of cold later. You know that I don’t handle the cold well.”

“Yes, because your intestines get all scrumbly,” answered Pacifica. “I know all about your tummy troubles. But, trust me when I say that it’s only going to be hotter once we get to South Carolina. You think you know hot? Wait until the air is so humid you can literally see the haze.” For her part, Pacifica was wearing a pale, aquamarine blouse over a white camisole, paired with khaki pants and comfortable tennis shoes. She had taken the time in the morning to weave her hair into a long braid, simple and strong—there was no point in risking having the beautiful blonde strands get caught in an errant tray table.

“Then I’ll change in the airport when we land,” said Dipper, stretching as he walked over to where Pacifica stood on the sidewalk, precariously perching her carry-on on the top of her suitcase. “But, for now, I’ll be miserable.”

“You could have just put the coat in your carry-on, dipstick,” smirked Mabel as she hopped out of the truck. Mabel was wearing a pale red sweater, with gradations of yellow and orange yarn woven throughout, atop dark, slim fitting jeans and tennis shoes. She took a moment to stretch, just like Dipper, before joining the circle of people standing on the sidewalk. Thankfully, traffic was fairly slow this early in the morning, so Soos wasn’t under any pressure to quickly move his vehicle.

“Yeah…” sighed Dipper, looking at the sliding glass doors of the airport. “I could, but we’re already here. It’s not worth it at this point.” As he talked, Waddles hopped out of the backseat, landing on the ground with a sharp thud as his hooves hit the concrete.

Waddles wandered over to the center of the circle, everyone watching as he sat down, gently nuzzling his head into Mabel’s hand. A six-inch seam of fresh scar tissue ran down his back, marring his otherwise smooth skin. The wound that the shapeshifter had inflicted had healed over nicely, but made Waddles a little less flexible than he had been before. He slept less often, and Mabel had been known to slip some pain medicine into his food every so often. Most importantly, though, he was still the same pig, and loved all of them just as much.

“I’m sorry, Waddles,” Mabel apologized, crouching down to look him in the eyes. “They don’t allow pigs on commercial flights, and we don’t have the Stans here to threaten the pilot this time.” Waddles snorted happily as Mabel scratched him. “But, we’ll only be gone for a week, and then we’ll be right back. In the meantime, you’ll have plenty of food and scratches here with Soos and Melody.”

At the mention of Soos’s name, Waddles stood and walked over to him. Mabel may have been Waddles’s best friend, but he and Soos shared a bond that could only come from having briefly switched bodies.

“Don’t worry dawgs,” smiled Soos as Waddles approached him. “Me and the hambone here are going to get along just fine. He can help take care of the baby!”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” smirked Melody, rolling her eyes as she leaned back up against the side of the truck. “That’s assuming that it even comes soon. I feel like I’ve been nine months pregnant for six weeks.”

“All that means is that Gladys or Tyrone, whichever one, is going to be super strong!” cheered Mabel as she crossed over to give Melody a hug. Soos and Melody had chosen to leave the gender of the baby as a surprise, which meant that Mabel kept referring to the baby with both of her preferred names, despite the fact that neither Soos nor Melody liked them.

Dipper didn’t understand how the soon-to-be parents could go all nine months without knowing the gender. It was gnawing at him, and he wasn’t even the one having the baby. But, he had developed enough self-control to leave well enough alone, and was eagerly awaiting whenever the news finally came.

Pacifica, for her part, shared Dipper’s opinions. Maybe her feelings on motherhood would change as she grew up and approached Melody’s age, but as for now, the prospect was absolutely terrifying, and she would want to approach that beast prepared with as much information as she could possibly have.

“They’d better be an Olympic weightlifter for all the work I’m putting in,” smiled Melody as she hugged Dipper and Pacifica in turn. Both of the teenagers subtly arched their backs outward, not wanting to put any more pressure on her stomach than was absolutely necessary.

“Thing’s will be fine,” replied Dipper. “You’ve got Dr. Louis, after all, and he was good enough at taking care of all of us after the shapeshifter.”

“Dipper, stop worrying about my maternity care,” replied Melody, grabbing onto Soos’s hand. “It’s our job to take care of that, and it’s your job to fly to South Carolina and have fun.”

“Melody’s right,” echoed Pacifica, passing the handle of one of her suitcases into Dipper’s hand with such an easy confidence that he took it automatically. “We’ve got a plane leaving in forty-five minutes, and we need to hurry up and get through security.”

“Forty-five minutes?!” exclaimed Dipper, immediately gathering up all of the luggage. Pacifica and Mabel both carried one suitcase and a bag for the plane, while Dipper was stuck dragging two suitcases while wearing his backpack. “Experts recommend that you get to the airport at least two hours before your flight is scheduled to leave. Why did I let you talk me into leaving the Shack so late?”

“Dipper, I’ve been to this airport before,” answered Pacifica. “It’s a small place, and security doesn’t take that long. Plus, look at how few people are here. We’ll be fine.”

“Still,” continued Soos, stepping up for his round of hugs, “it’s probably best not to wait around too long. You’ve got everything you need. Now you just need to get out there and fly like an eagle!”

“Always inspirational, Soos,” Dipper smiled as he stepped back from the handyman’s hug. Almost in unison, the three teenagers reached down to scratch Waddles’s head one more time.

“Now go!” Melody encouraged, waving them away as tears formed in her eyes. They weren’t even her kids, and they were only leaving for a week, but she was still understandably emotional.

Mabel and Pacifica waved back as Soos opened the rear door and helped Waddles clamber up into the cab of the truck before doing the same for Melody. Dipper, dragging two suitcases, was only able to awkwardly bob his head back and forth in a simulation of a wave. As the truck roared to life and vanished down the highway behind them, the trio inhaled deeply as the glass doors before them parted and they were greeted with a cool rush of air.

The inside of the airport was indeed small, and covered with a thin brown carpet in a pattern vaguely reminiscent of lumber. The airline desks each had a wall to themselves in the small, arching lobby area. Past security, long wings of glass and tile flooring stretched to either side, with obvious signs marking the departure gates. The ceiling was supported by curved metallic struts, painted brown and buffed to an almost copper sheen.

It was certainly smaller than the airports that Dipper had been in before, but he preferred the more laid back atmosphere. Mabel, who hadn’t participated in the math competition that had taken Dipper to St. Louis, hadn’t even seen the inside of an airport, and drank in all of the sights thirstily. Her previous anxiety, whatever the cause, appeared to have completely dissipated.

“Is this where we check the bags?” she asked enthusiastically, bouncing over to one of the desks.

“Over here,” corrected Pacifica, gesturing to a station on the exact opposite side of the lobby. As Mabel joined Pacifica and Dipper, Pacifica reached into her bag and pulled out the envelope containing their tickets.

Dipper was lining up the suitcases, preparing them to be weighed as Pacifica handed the attendant the tickets. With an expertise that only comes from practice, the attendant quickly scanned the tickets and affixed luggage labels to the suitcases, moving them back into the system of conveyer belts that ran along the inside of the airport almost as quickly as Dipper could place them on the scale.

Mabel’s suitcase had originally been almost five pounds over the weight limit, but Dipper had had the foresight to weigh all of them ahead of time. After much coercion, he had finally convinced Mabel to leave behind three of her sweaters—based on the argument that she was already bringing nine of them for a seven day trip, and that the summer temperatures in South Carolina regularly reached into the triple digits.

“What now?” Mabel asked as Pacifica handed the twins their stamped tickets. Both of them immediately started looking the scraps of paper up and down, both out of curiosity—one motivated by worry, the other by fascination. The tickets clearly laid out their itinerary—from Redmond, Oregon to Phoenix, Arizona. Then, after a brief layover, they would be catching a direct flight to Charleston, South Carolina, where Sam would be waiting to pick them up.

“Now, we go through security and head to the gate. And then we wait,” answered Dipper, sighing as he approached the security checkpoint. This was always his least favorite part.

“Well, this at least seems fun,” replied Mabel, oblivious to Dipper’s tone as she raced up to the large, circular metal detectors. True to Pacifica’s word, there were no lines this early in the morning at so small an airport, and they would be able to make their flight with plenty of time to spare for bathroom breaks beforehand.

“Alright,” announced the TSA agent who was managing the detector. He wore a blue shirt rolled up past his elbows, exposing muscled forearms and a spiraling tattoo. The imposing qualities of his body were only slightly undercut by his face, which featured a large, bushy mustache framed by round, babyish cheeks and the standard TSA ball cap. “Shoes, belts, and all electronics and metal items in the bins. Then you can step in.”

Mabel moved swiftly, quickly pulling off her shoes and placing them in the plastic bin the agent held out for her. This was quickly followed by her phone, a handful of bobby pins, and a keychain with no keys, but lots of shiny charms.

“Continue on into the detector and assume the position,” continued the agent as the plastic rollers began to carry the bin with Mabel’s belongings into the detector.

“Assume the position?” asked Mabel, worried and confused as she stepped into the large glass and metal tube. That phrase had potentially unpleasant implications.

Once she stepped into the machine, however, her stress dissipated as she saw the diagram—hands above your head, and legs slightly spread. Mabel spun to face the diagram and raised her arms, lifting the shirt she wore just enough to expose the slightest bit of her stomach. 

Mabel couldn’t keep herself from giggling slightly at the loud whirring sound the machine made as the panels of glass and plastic briefly revolved around her. Something about the situation was so absurd.

“You’re good, miss,” said the agent, gesturing for Mabel to exit and retrieve her belongings. Mabel quickly bounded out of the machine, reaching for her shoes. She enjoyed wearing socks around the house as much as anyone, but not in such a public place.

However, as she reached for her shoes, she froze as she looked at the scan of her body. Something seemed to be missing, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Glancing up and down, she stood there until she had finally zeroed in on what it was. Mabel breathed a sigh of relief as the machine whirred behind her, replacing the scan of her body with Pacifica’s much shorter frame.

“Is something wrong, miss?” asked the TSA agent as Mabel continued to stare at the blue glow of the screen.

“Oh, no, it’s nothing,” replied Mabel, shaking her head. “It’s just been a long time since I’ve seen an x-ray of my head without braces in it.” As she spoke, she parted her lips and lifted a finger to her mouth, briefly feeling the perfectly straight rows of white teeth, just to confirm that her jaw was free from its metal prison.

Pacifica looked back at Dipper in the line, who only shrugged as he removed his shoes. Mabel’s braces had been removed in March, and she was still getting used to life without them. It had been a big moment for her, and she still wasn’t entirely convinced they were gone. It would no doubt take some time to adjust to the change.


	3. Layover

The air howled and whistled around the outside of the plane as it surged through the sky, reflecting the beaming sun off of its aluminum skin. Despite the light coming in through the windows, the interior of the plane straddled the line of being too cold to stand.

“So, just to clarify,” asked Dipper, now resting comfortably in his jacket as he furiously scribbled notes into his journal. “The rule for formal silverware is that it literally just goes out to in?”

“That’s really all there is to it,” answered Pacifica, shaking her head. “It looks daunting, but that’s a pretty simple rule to keep track of everything. You use the leftmost fork and rightmost knife as each course is served, until you eventually run out of utensils.”

“And why, exactly, did I not know this?” Dipper continued, glancing up at Pacifica, who checked her nails casually. “It seems like the kind of thing that they could have taught us in school. The out-to-in rule is a lot simpler than all of the stuff they make us learn in math.”

“Probably just to make fancy dining seem inaccessible to you people,” Pacifica shrugged. “If you make something simple seem really complicated, a lot of people will give up before they even try to learn it.”

“You people?” Dipper chastised, gently leaning against Pacifica’s shoulder. She rolled her eyes in response, though the thin pink jacket she had put on absorbed most of the blow.

“You know that when I say ‘you people’ I mean it endearingly,” she smiled. “I happen to really like you people, after all.”

Inwardly, she made a note to avoid saying that in the future—Dipper was kind enough to take the joke, but she didn’t want to wind up in a situation where someone eventually wasn’t.

“But, should you really be writing all of this etiquette stuff in your weirdness journal?” Pacifica pointed out, lifting her arms in the air as she stretched. “I thought that was meant just for keeping track of all the shenanigans you got into.” She winced, and then smiled, as her elbows popped.

“It still is,” answered Dipper as he finished writing with a flourish, clicking his pen closed and then gently closing the book. “But it’s also meant for general helpful advice, and I need to be able to keep track of all the fancy stuff you’re teaching me. Plus, if I ever get sucked into another dimension for thirty years, this could be useful information for anyone who finds the journal.”

“Just don’t build portals or summon demons, and I think that we’ll be able to avoid that,” Pacifica said, lowering her arms and taking Dipper’s hand in hers, casually drinking in the warmth of his skin in the cold cabin of the airplane.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dipper smiled, gently squeezing her hand.

“Oh, that actually reminds me,” Pacifica said, perking up and looking at Dipper. “There is one more etiquette rule that I forgot to mention.” Dipper reached to get his pen back out, but Pacifica held his hand in place—this rule was simple enough that it didn’t need to be written down. “Now, in the South, you’re going to need to call everyone older than you ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am,” but you don’t have to do that anywhere else. And, call everyone by their first name.”

“First name?” Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion. “That seems a little bit… informal.”

“It is,” answered Pacifica, smiling. “And that’s exactly the point. If you’re not in the know, you’ll automatically start calling people by their last name, which allows the truly fancy people to single you out and then go in for the kill. But, if you use first names, it’s a sign of mutual respect.”

“There’s so much about your world I don’t understand,” Dipper said, shaking his head. “It’s so much simpler just to sit down and eat dinner without all the pointless pleasantries.”

“It is confusing,” acknowledged Pacifica, “but that’s exactly why you asked me to teach you how to be fancy, and that’s exactly why I’m doing it.”

“Is there anything else that we need to cover?” asked Dipper, reaching down to tuck his journal and pen back into the bookbag at his feet.

“Oh, not at the moment,” sighed Pacifica, letting go of Dipper’s hand and tapping on the screen on the back of the seat in front of her. Slowly navigating through the menus, she came to the live tracker that displayed the plane’s position. “Besides, I think that we’re about to start heading down soon.”

As soon as she spoke, both Dipper and Pacifica briefly felt themselves go weightless before being caught by their seatbelts and settling back down into place. Outside the windows of the plane, the distant and dusty features of the ground below slowly began to come into sharper focus.

“Ah!” Mabel yelped from across the aisle, not having expected the sudden jolt. Instantly, her hands flew to her seatbelt, making sure that she was securely in place.

The plane had two seats on each side of the central aisle—Pacifica had only bought three of the seats, but the fourth was thankfully unoccupied, which meant that they had room to spread out. Pacifica had taken the aisle seat on the right side of the plane, while Dipper had the window. Mabel had the other two seats to herself, and had surprisingly spent most of the time with her forehead pressed against the glass of the window.

At the beginning of the flight, she had sat rigidly in her seat, practically unable to move as she waited for takeoff. Pacifica had briefly moved across the aisle to sit next to her, providing a hand for Mabel to hold as they taxied down the runway. The oscillations of the wings, gently waving up and down, had been particularly frightening—the wings weren’t supposed to move, after all.

However, as soon as the engines had started to roar, Mabel’s eyes had grown wide and were glued to the window as she watched the asphalt and hangars fly by, not even noticing when the wings finally caught the air and the tires left the ground. Pacifica, having flown many times before, didn’t bother to look at the scenery—instead, she was focused on Mabel, and making sure that she was able to handle the experience.

There was another brief moment of panic as the plane turned to head towards Phoenix, and another as it settled in at a cruising altitude, but for the most part, Mabel had been remarkably calm as she drank in the sights below them. The rolling carpet of trees eventually thinned out, and gave way to a flat yellow desert that was studded with sparkling stones, the few rock formations that were there casting long shadows across the sand that grew shorter as the sun arced into the sky, and the plane headed east.

Pacifica had sat by Mabel for a few more minutes after they reached their cruising altitude. The ease with which Mabel had adapted to flying increased her suspicion that the real reason Mabel was nervous earlier had something to do with Sam. But, knowing that a plane wasn’t the best place to push the issue, Pacifica had let Mabel simply enjoy the flight. There would be enough time to get to the truth later.

The remainder of the flight had been taken up with Dipper’s etiquette lesson—after the disaster of the Northwest Christmas Eve Party six months prior, Dipper wanted Pacifica to formally teach him all of the information that he would need to fully participate in the fancy lifestyle of his girlfriend.

Pacifica hadn’t been looking forward to teaching Dipper, since passing along such an antiquated and pointless way of being seemed useless, and almost hurtful. However, Dipper had proven a shrewd student. He had diligently taken notes, and asked questions whenever there was something that he wasn’t sure about. And, in the end, there were fewer rules that Pacifica seemed to remember there being. She was wearing a jacket to cut through the chill of the air, but seeing her boyfriend be so genuinely invested in such a crucial aspect of her life was more than enough to warm her heart.

Now, however, the plane was steadily descending into scorching Phoenix.

“I’m going to go sit with Mabel,” whispered Pacifica into Dipper’s ear as the seatbelt sign flashed on. Dipper quickly turned his head in acquiescence and pecked his girlfriend on the cheek as she undid her seatbelt, checked the aisle for the flight attendants, and then slid across to the empty seat next to Mabel.

“You good?” Pacifica asked as she buckled back up. Mabel who had kept her eyes glued to the window, briefly jumped at Pacifica’s sudden appearance.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Mabel answered, before returning her view to the earth below.

“So, how has your first flight been?” asked Pacifica, glancing past Mabel’s hair to look at the horizon. Phoenix almost seemed to be in a bowl—a massive stretch of desert surrounded the thin patchwork of roads beneath them, and beyond that, ochre mountains towered over the valley in all directions.

“It’s not over yet,” answered Mabel, quickly looking around for any wood that she could knock on to preserve her luck. Finding none, she settled for crossing her fingers. “Ask again when we’re on the ground.”

Pacifica rolled her eyes in response, but started inspecting everything around their seats as the pilot’s voice crackled on over the intercom. He informed everyone that they were going to land right on time, and that the weather in Phoenix was a balmy ninety-one degrees. Mabel briefly checked to make sure that her seatbelt was tight and that her tray table was up, but went right back to window gazing.

Pacifica was surprised that the brunette hadn’t used the tray table to work on her sketching, played any of the games on the headrest, or absolutely torn through the shopping, fashion, and destination magazines in the seat in front of her. Then again, this was Mabel’s first flight, and it was relatively brief. She would likely take the chance for some other activities on the second leg of the flight, which would be much longer and on a substantially larger plane.

“Uhh, Pacifica?” asked Mabel uncertainly, gesturing with her finger to indicate that the blonde should look out of the window. “Is it just me, or is the ground getting awfully close?”

“Yes, Mabel,” answered Pacifica placidly. “That’s what ‘landing’ means. We have to get close to the ground.”

“Yeah, I know that, but where’s the runway?” Mabel wondered, slightly more panicked. Pacifica leaned over to peek at the ground—indeed, there was no runway—instead, there were roads, warehouses, and a patchwork of power lines on old and decrepit poles.

“It’s coming,” smiled Pacifica as Mabel grabbed her hand. “It usually shows up at the last second.”

“But we’re only like thirty feet above the ground!!” Mabel exclaimed, squeezing Pacifica for reassurance. Pacifica winced at her impressive grip, but took the pain in stride.

“It’s more than that,” laughed Pacifica. “After so long in the air, your depth perception is off. We’re still a couple hundred feet up, and I’ll bet you that the runway will be showing up any second.”

Mabel, not responding, instead breathed a sigh of relief as she pressed her forehead against the glass and looked forward. Beneath them, the pattern of infrastructure gave way to a dusty field, and then a long line of pavement.

Pacifica prepared her hand for another squeeze as the wheels impacted the asphalt, lightly bouncing once, but Mabel was so relieved by the presence of the runway that she didn’t have time to refocus her worry before the plane was already safely on the ground. Instinctively, Pacifica held Mabel back as the flaps on the wings flared open, slowing the plane down to a crawl. After a few more moments, the plane pivoted and began making its way towards the waiting terminal—even from this distance, the shimmer of turquoise paint could be seen on the roof.

Mabel, finally averting her gaze from the window, released Pacifica’s hand and started gathering up her things. The only item she had taken out of her carry-on was a blanket, which she had wrapped around her legs for warmth. She would have brought her knitting needles, but was disappointed when she heard that she wouldn’t be allowed to have sharp metal instruments on the plane.

Once again looking for any stalking flight attendants, Pacifica ducked back to Dipper’s side, where he had already packed up her things and had her carry-on waiting.

“How did she handle things?” Dipper whispered into her ear before glancing out of the window. He loved the view from above as much as anyone, but he clearly enjoyed watching the planes take off and land more. Though his gaze was averted, Pacifica knew that he was still listening.

“Better than I expected from the way she was talking in the car,” began Pacifica. Briefly, she glanced over to Mabel to see her violently stuffing her blanket into a too-small bag. “Hey, does she really have a fear of heights?” she asked Dipper, unable to get a read on Mabel’s sincerity.

“She does,” answered Dipper, turning to face Pacifica. “Or, at least, she did four years ago. She wasn’t lying when she told you about the water tower. She was trying to cure Stan of his fear of heights, but wound up with the same phobia. A delicious dose of irony.”

“Yeah, and whose fault was it that the water tower almost fell down?” asked Pacifica with a smirk.

“That’s not important,” replied Dipper, waving the question away with a blush. “What is important is that she seems to have gotten over it. Everyone’s nervous the first time they fly, but it seems like she handled it pretty well.”

“I guess,” mumbled Pacifica to herself as the plane slowly came to a halt, and the walkway began to extend towards the doors. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I still think something’s off.”

As Pacifica spoke, the intercom crackled to life and provided instructions for leaving the plane, drowning out her voice and preventing Dipper from hearing her. Across the aisle, Mabel popped out of her seat, eager to leave, but Pacifica gestured that she should sit back down—both she and Dipper had learned that, if you’re not in first class, it’s better to just wait for things to clear.

As the river of people rushing for the exit dwindled into a stream, and finally a trickle, Pacifica lurched into the aisle, helping both Dipper and Mabel stand up and shoulder their bags. Looking back, Pacifica could see that both of the twins were smiling broadly—Dipper from how much he enjoyed the process of flying, and Mabel from the novelty of it all.

Much like when they had first climbed out of Soos’s truck in the morning, the air on the gangway outside of the plane was burning hot. Through the slim gaps in the canvas stretched over the metal frame, the shimmering air above the pavement was plainly visible. Thankfully, the walk from the plane to the airport was relatively short, and they were once more surrounded by cool air before their sweat had a chance to soak through their clothing.

“So, Mabel, how was your first flight?” asked Dipper once they had emerged into the concourse, speaking to her directly for the first time since takeoff. During the flight, Pacifica had been happy to serve as an intermediary.

“It was so cool!” Mabel responded enthusiastically. “The engines had just as much _r-r-r-raaaahhhh_ to them as you and Soos said! And the shaking wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be!”

“I’m glad it worked out,” answered Dipper, gently leaning over to punch his sister in the arm playfully. She responded by returning the punch, a little bit harder than Dipper’s had been. Dipper, being larger and stronger, took it in stride.

“Besides,” he continued, reaching into his pocket to pull out his ticket. “It means that we’re an hour and a half closer to Charleston and Sam’s party. Give or take a few time zones.”

Dipper held up his ticket to one of the screens on the wall that liste all of the outgoing flights and their departure gates. He started to quickly glance over the numbers, attempting to find the next gate they needed to head to so they could make their next flight in plenty of time.

Pacifica gazed at Dipper for a moment as he did so. She couldn’t explain what it was, but there was something so confident, yet so understatedly masculine in the way he was scanning the screen. Maybe it was in the way he held up his hand—whenever he raised his hand to acknowledge a car that was letting them cross the street when they were wandering Gravity Falls, she got the same feeling. She knew that she was protected, and that he would show her the way and make sure they got where they needed to go.

As she admired him, however, she saw a flash of motion in the corner of her eye. Turning her head, she saw Mabel doubled over, clutching her stomach just as she had done in Soos’s truck. Her face was obscured by the crash of her hair, but Pacifica could imagine the wincing on her face.

“Mabel,” Pacifica asked concernedly, rushing over and placing a hand on her back. “Are you okay? Do you feel sick?”

“It’s… nothing,” grumbled Mabel, at the same time her intestines howled in distress. “I just need a bathroom.” Pacifica’s head instantly popped up, glancing around the concourse until she spotted the sign—white figures separated by a line on a blue background.

“We’re going to the bathroom, Dipper,” Pacifica informed him as she took Mabel by the arm and led her away.”

“Okay,” acknowledged Dipper, not thinking anything of it. He hadn’t noticed Mabel doubled over in pain, and women going to the bathroom together wasn’t remotely unusual. “I’ll stay here and watch your stuff. Just remember that our next flight leaves in an hour.”

Together, the two girls quickly hurried to the door. Though it was a larger airport than Redmond, and it was later in the day, it was still empty enough that there was thankfully no line. As Pacifica ushered Mabel in, however, Mabel stood up and put a hand on Pacifica’s shoulder.

“I’m fine,” said Mabel, briefly holding a hand to her throat as though to stifle a burp. “I can handle this on my own.”

“I wasn’t going to go in the stall with you,” Pacifica responded, rolling her eyes. “You’re not on your deathbed or anything.” Mabel attempted to respond, but the rumbling in her stomach cut her off. “Go!” Pacifica followed up emphatically. “I’ll be waiting out here.”

With a grateful look, Mabel spun around and dashed into the bathroom, leaving Pacifica standing outside. Unsure of what to do, and realizing that she had left her phone in her bag with Dipper, the blonde turned around and leaned up against the wall. She took the opportunity to look around her surroundings.

She had known that Arizona had a thing for turquoise, but she hadn’t expected it to be quite as prevalent as it was. Just by turning her head, she could see three small gift shops that mostly featured cheap turquoise beads bound with gold—or, more likely, some cheaper metal made up to look like gold. She could have told the difference if she held one of the items, but she wasn’t about to wander into one of the shops out of mere curiosity.

The columns that supported the roof were designed to look like stacks of sandstone, and the entire interior of the airport traded on various shades of brown and red. From the large triangular panels that made up the ceiling to the rare flat walls that had neither maps nor signs on them, the spectrum of colors made the entire place feel smaller than it was, and warm in a good way.

The monotony of the earth tones was periodically broken up by murals and other pieces of art, that ranged in size from geometric patterns around the corners to murals that took up entire walkways. These murals often heavily involved blue and yellow, along with some rarer smatterings of pink. There was no green.

Pacifica’s instincts for art weren’t completely opposed to the way the airport was laid out. After all, this art wasn’t meant for direct appreciation. It was essentially fancy wallpaper, designed to make the time spent in a liminal space a little more pleasant than it otherwise would be.

She turned to find Dipper among the crowd. He had apparently found their gate number, and had dragged the girls’ carry-ons off to the side, where he leaned against a handrail bounding a small, no doubt overpriced, restaurant. He had pulled out his phone, the Weslee Mark II, and was tapping away at it with his brow furrowed.

Pacifica began to walk over to him to ask what he was looking at, when she was suddenly pulled back by the sound of a stall door being slammed shut within the girls’ bathroom. Mabel had told her to stay out, but Pacifica wanted to at least make sure that she was safe. Turning, Pacifica’s sneakers made a high squeaking sound as they rubbed against the tile of the floor. 

The interior of the women’s bathroom was painted in the same tones as the rest of the airport, except it trended slightly more towards pink. The ceiling was a light blue, and the walls were pale orange, contrasting with the deep blue of the stalls. Across the aisle from the stalls was a row of sinks and a countertop of faux granite. The trash can in the corner was overflowing with brown paper towels, many only half-used.

Pacifica slowly creeped down the aisle, not wanting to look too creepy as the other women went about their business. Though Pacifica’s attention was taken up by trying to locate the stall that housed Mabel, she couldn’t resist snatching a glance at herself in the mirrors. She had really needed silver earrings to compliment the rest of her outfit, but had chosen not to wear them just to avoid any potential problems with security.

The sound of gagging coming from one of the stalls alerted Pacifica to where Mabel was. Pacifica winced as she bent over slightly, and saw the bottom of Mabel’s sneakers—Mabel was currently on her knees in front of the toilet, sick in a different way than Pacifica had anticipated. Pacifica felt her own stomach grumble as she walked into the empty stall next to Mabel—when she was a kid, even the sound of vomiting was enough to make her stomach start to turn. And, while she had somewhat grown out of that, she hadn’t entirely eliminated the reflex.

Within the stall, Pacifica started to take deep breaths to calm the nerves deep within her core. She didn’t have to use the bathroom, but she felt awkward just standing in the stall. Instead, she took a lid liner and spread it out over the toilet before sitting down. She still had all of her clothes on—but you couldn’t be too safe in a public restroom.

“Hey, Mabel,” began Pacifica weakly, before clearing her throat. At the same time, another spasm rocked Mabel’s body, causing Pacifica to gag.

The wet splatter indicated that something had finally come up.

“Do you need some medicine or something?” Pacifica continued. “I know they sell medicine for nausea here. I can have Dipper go get some Dramamine.”

“Don’t!” Mabel choked out, wiping her mouth away with a scrap of toilet paper. “He’s much more squeamish than I am. If he even knew I was sick, he would freak out.”

“I could go get some if you like,” Pacifica continued. “He wouldn’t even have to know.”

“It’s not that,” Mabel answered before spitting into the bowl. “I think it was just nervousness from flying. I’ll be fine on the next flight.”

“Are you sure?” Pacifica asked, trying to ask complex questions in the easiest way possible. “If it was because of flying, then I think you would have felt worse before we took off for the first time. It wouldn’t just be showing up now.”

“Then it was food poisoning!” shouted Mabel, loud enough for Pacifica to wince, imagining all the women in the other stalls turning to look at them through the blue plastic. “I don’t know! All I know is that I’ll get over it soon, and that you don’t need to tell Dip-“ Mabel was cut off by another throbbing heave, traveling up from deep within her gut. There was another splatter, but it was quieter this time.

“You don’t have to tell me why you’re sick if you don’t want to!” Pacifica snapped, trying to temper her frustration with the understanding of how bad Mabel was feeling. “All I want is for you to feel better. Is there anything I can do to help?”

For a minute, Mabel was silent. The pause lasted so long that Pacifica was concerned Mabel had passed out using the toilet as a pillow.

“How…” Mabel began before pausing and swallowing. “How did you know when you liked Dipper?”

Pacifica sat there in stupefied silence, unsure of whether she had actually just heard what she thought she did. It was not the question that she had been expecting the brunette to ask. After four years, Mabel was finally the one coming to her for relationship advice—and she had no idea what to do.

She couldn’t think of any meaningful answer. When had she fallen for Dipper? It certainly wasn’t during that first summer… or maybe it was. The moment that she had started to love him, and the moment that she realized it, were two very different instances. From the beginning, the only thing she had known was that there was something about him that she wanted to know more about.

“I’m sorry I asked,” Mabel followed up. Pacifica started, not realizing how long she had been thinking about her answer. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“I’ll answer!” exclaimed Pacifica, struggling to put together the right combination of words. “I don’t really know when I started liking him. Honestly, it was probably the night of the Northwest Fest in the Manor. I didn’t know what I felt, or what it meant. All I knew back then is that I wanted to feel it some more.”

“Did it feel like your insides were about to tie themselves in a knot and then explode in a shower of glitter and viscera?”

“Viscera?” Pacifica asked amusedly. “That’s a Dipper word. That’s not a Mabel word.”

“I saw it on his stupid word-a-day calendar this morning,” muttered Mabel to herself, just loud enough for Pacifica to hear it and then break out into laughter.

“No, it didn’t feel like that,” answered Pacifica. “It felt more like butterflies. There were a few times I thought I was sick, because it just felt so _strange,_ but it always cleared up whenever I started spending time with him.”

“Then why do I feel like this?” Mabel asked, accompanied by a sound that could only have been her raising and lowering the toilet seat in frustration.

“I don’t know…” Pacifica fired back, sensing an opening. “Why do you feel like this?”

“Because of… I don’t know,” Mabel began with certainty, before trailing off. “I’ve never been sick like this before. Not like this.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go get any medicine?” asked Pacifica. “I don’t want Dipper to start harassing us about getting to the plane on time, especially if you’re not feeling well.”

“Fine,” Mabel replied, after a moment of silence. “But… please don’t tell Dipper. Let him know that I’m okay. He doesn’t need to know about this.”

“Don’t worry,” Pacifica said, standing up and stretching as she prepared to leave the stall. “This will stay just between us girls.”

“Pinky promise?” Mabel asked pleadingly. Pacifica looked down, and saw Mabel’s arm extending from under the bottom of the stall, pinky extended.

Pacifica drew back instinctively. Mabel’s hand was no doubt covered in germs—from the toilet, from the floor, and from the vomit. After a moment to gather herself, Pacifica acted against her better judgement and crouched down. She wrapped her pinky around Mabel’s and shook once.

“Promise,” Pacifica said as she released Mabel’s finger and immediately held her hand as far away from her body as possible.

Stepping out of the stall, she rushed to the sink and doused her hands with soap and water, scrubbing vigorously until her hands had taken on a pale pink glow. Drying them off, Pacifica was pleased to see that the robin’s egg blue paint covering her nails had stood up to the abuse. Pacifica then walked out of the restroom and back onto the main concourse, leaving her paper towels to flutter gently to the top of the pile overflowing the trash can.

Stepping out, Pacifica took a deep breath, grateful to breathe the busy air of the crowd instead of the septic bile of the restroom. Scanning the hallway, she spotted Dipper in exactly the same position she had left him. Moving quickly, she crossed the flow of traffic and sidled up next to him.

“Hey,” said Dipper, his head perking up at his girlfriend’s sudden presence. “Are you okay? You and Mabel have been in there for a long time.”

“Dipper, we’ve been dating for almost a year at this point. You ought to know how long it takes in the bathroom,” Pacifica smiled, waving away his question. Dipper was, of course, right about how long they were taking—but Mabel had asked Pacifica to throw him off the trail, and that was exactly what she intended to do.

“Fair enough,” Dipper answered before glancing back down at the screen of the Weslee Mark II. “But we’re down to forty-five minutes before our next flight leaves. The gate isn’t too far away, but I don’t want to wait too much longer before we start heading towards it.”

As he spoke, the Weslee dinged, and an alert appeared at the top of the screen. Dipper tapped it, an expression of surprise, excitement, and worry on his face, before quickly flipping the device around and extending the antennae that fit within the case.

The Weslee Mark II was a marvel of engineering, made out of alien metal and fulfilling all of the requirements of a regular phone and more. It was in constant communication with all of the other Weslees and Ford’s labs, both the one in Gravity Falls and the one aboard the _Stan o’ War II_ , at all times. Thanks to this communication, the Weslee could contact anyone, at any time, and track weirdness with remarkable precision. And, of course, it served the function of a regular phone, with a camera and the ability to make calls and send text messages.

Spinning the sleek, abalone device back to the glass screen, a rotating wheel briefly appeared as the device made connection with the Weslee held by Grunkle Ford. The screen went black, and then Ford’s face appeared, bounded by gray clouds, and with the whistle of the wind around him blowing the collar of his jacket around his neck.

“Grunkle Ford!” exclaimed Dipper enthusiastically upon seeing his mentor. “It’s not time for our weekly call yet. What’s going on?”

“Well, the mission to Washington was an unmitigated disaster,” began Ford, slouched over at a table on the deck of the _Stan o’ War II._

The gentle bobbing of the camera, along with the angle it was being held at, showed that Ford was filming it himself. Stan was likely at the helm, guiding the ship along. Dipper’s face briefly fell at hearing the news, only to be quickly replaced by an expression of abject confusion.

“I tried to have a conversation with the President about setting up a wildlife refuge around Gravity Falls so all of the weirdness could be protected and contained, but they wouldn’t even let me talk to him! What kind of democracy do we live in, where someone as competent and well-respected as I am can’t even harass an elected official?” Ford continued, shaking a fist in the air. He then briefly slammed his face down onto the table before lifting it back up. Pacifica leaned in and looked at Dipper, who was pinching the bridge of his nose in embarrassment.

“Grunkle Ford,” began Dipper, rubbing his eyes. “Please tell me that you didn’t just walk up to the White House and try to ring the doorbell?”

“Of course that’s what I did!” responded Ford loudly. “It’s the White _House_ , after all. It’s a house, and houses have doorbells that are meant to be rung. I even showed them my credentials and my laser pistol, just to confirm that I was telling the truth, but they just seemed to freak out more! Why? Have things really changed that much?”

“Yes, they have,” answered Dipper. “They probably didn’t let you in _because_ you had the laser pistol. And also because you’re legally dead, and therefore not a United States citizen.”

“I’m dead!” exclaimed Ford, slapping the heel of his palm to his forehead. “Of course I am! I completely forgot that I was dead.” Then, Ford’s eyes narrowed as he looked up and past the camera, shouting in an accusatory tone at something in the distance. “And why, Stanley, am I dead again?!”

“I did what I had to do!” answered Stan from several dozen feet away, confirming that he was at the helm of the ship. His voice was barely audible over the wind, causing Dipper and Pacifica to have to strain to hear him. “If you want to be not-dead, you can get a new ID!”

“I shouldn’t have to!” responded Ford, seeming to forget that he was on a video call with Dipper. “It should be you, since you’re the one who actually gave up your identity!”

“All your stuff would be expired!” bellowed Stan gruffly. “You’d have to do it anyway! And I haven’t set foot in a DMV in forty years, and I’m sure as hell not about to start now!” Ford started to respond to that, but then glanced back down at the screen of his Weslee and finally caught a glimpse of Pacifica’s blonde hair in the frame.

“Ah, Pacifica!” exclaimed Ford, glancing himself up and down to make sure he was presentable. It was one thing to be disheveled around his brother and Dipper, but he had higher standards whenever there was a woman in the room, no matter who it was. “I wasn’t expecting you to be on this call. What brings you to… wherever you are?”

“Hey Ford,” began Pacifica, briefly looking over at the bathroom to see if Mabel was coming out—she wasn’t. “Dipper, Mabel, and I are heading to Charleston for a Fourth of July Party with Sam. We’re in Phoenix right now waiting to get on our next flight.”

“Phoenix,” Ford mumbled to himself. “A marvelous bird, a somewhat less marvelous city.” Realizing that he was mumbling, he raised his voice and spoke more clearly. “I hope that the first leg of your flight went well. This is just another reason that we need to try and reconstruct the teleportation engine whenever we meet back up, Dipper. We could completely eliminate layovers!”

“How’s that going, by the way?” asked Dipper. After the shapeshifter had accidentally disassembled itself, and the teleportation engine along with it, Ford had been attempted to reconstruct the machine from the scans and data that he had collected. He had taken enough alien metal with him when the _Stan o’ War II_ set back out to sea, and he had been working on it ever since.

“Slowly, but surely,” answered Ford. “I’m confident that the theoretical basis of the machine is correct. All of the math checks out, and the physics is sound. Actually building it up to spec is another matter entirely. If you were here to help me, I’m sure we could be done in no time at all.”

“When do you think we could meet up again?” Dipper wondered aloud. “I mean, if you’re just leaving Washington, you’re not too far away from South Carolina. We’re going to be there for about a week—I’m sure Sam has some place you can anchor your boat, if you wanted to visit.”

“Hmm… the offer is intriguing,” Ford said, rubbing his chin. Pacifica could hear the gentle scrape his stubble made against his hands. “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind if we dropped by? We wouldn’t want to impose—and we can always stay on the boat.”

“It’s fine!” answered Pacifica, before Dipper was even able to consult with her. “Sam was really interested in your work last Christmas, and I’m sure he’d love to talk with you again. Plus, like Dipper said, you’ll have a week. That’s more than enough time for us all to spend time with different people.” Pacifica looked up at Dipper, who greeted her with a broad smile.

“Stanley!” bellowed Ford, voice clearly audible over both the general mill of the airport, and the wind and birds of the mid-Atlantic. “What’s our top speed on this baby?”

“We hit twenty-five knots when we were running away from that big turtle!” answered Stan. “I wouldn’t push her at that for too long, but we can run a little below it.”

“Twenty-five knots… approximately four-hundred-and-seventy-five nautical miles…” mumbled Ford to himself, doing some quick mental math. “We’ll be there tomorrow morning!” he finally answered, enthusiastically. “We’ll take shifts on driving through the night.”

“Don’t push yourselves!” Dipper replied. “Just get there when you can get there. There’s no rush. We’ve got time.”

“Well, you’re partly right,” Ford answered. “I am going to take a nap. Running away from the Capitol Police was exhausting. Not like back in the glory days.” Everyone shook their heads at that comment—Ford from nostalgia, Dipper from disbelief, and Pacifica from amusement.

Pacifica stole another glance up to the bathroom, but Mabel still hadn’t emerged from inside. She was in worse shape than she was letting on, even if she was being circumspect about the reasons why.

“You keep talking with Ford,” whispered Pacifica into Dipper’s ear. “I’m going to go get something to eat.” Dipper nodded, acknowledging that he had heard her. Pacifica had thought that he may ask her to investigate what was taking Mabel so long, but he was too distracted by his conversation with the Stans.

“By the way, Grunkle Ford,” she heard Dipper continuing as she walked away. “We can still work on getting that nature refuge set up. We just need to talk to state senators and representatives before we move onto the national level.”

“This is why I enjoy talking to you, Dipper,” Ford sighed. “When you’ve been around as long as I have, you start to miss the easy solutions.” Pacifica smiled as she walked away—she knew how happy that praise was making Dipper.

Instead of heading to a restaurant, Pacifica made directly for one of the cheap, touristy turquoise shops that she had seen earlier. Stepping inside tentatively, she saw that they also had a wide selection of shirts, hats, and keychains. The turquoise jewelry, as she had suspected, was not framed with real gold.

Weaving in between the display racks, positioned too tightly together in such a small space, she soon found her way to the cash register. Beneath it, just as she had predicted, was a miniature pharmacy. Most of the medication came in single-serve foil packets, but there was a small bottle of Dramamine off to the side. It was hilariously overpriced, of course, but Pacifica didn’t mind. Money wasn’t an issue, and even if it was, she would have paid it if it could wind up helping Mabel.

Grabbing the bottle of medicine, and a larger bottle of water from a nearby cooler, Pacifica quickly paid and rushed back towards the bathroom. She tucked the supplies into her coat as she did so, just in case Dipper looked her way. However, he was still engrossed in conversation with Ford.

Pacifica stepped into the bathroom and walked down the aisle, trying to remember which stall Mabel was in. Bending down slightly, she soon saw the bottoms of Mabel’s shoes—she was exactly where Pacifica had left her.

Pacifica quietly knocked on the door and whispered Mabel’s name. After a moment, she heard a rustling from within the stall as Mabel’s legs adjusted, shakily supporting her weight as she stood up and slid open the lock.

The stall door cracked open, and Mabel peeked out, reaching out and taking the Dramamine and water with an expression of gratitude.

Pacifica was taken back by how she looked—even during the apocalypse, Mabel had been cheerful. Now, however, dark bags seemed to have spontaneously appeared under her eyes, and the lively glow of her cheeks had faded to a dismal pallor. She had cleaned her mouth as best she could, but glistening strands of her saliva still remained.

“Thanks,” Mabel gasped out before turning to close the stall door. Pacifica, acting without fully understanding what she was doing, reached out and held it open. For a moment, her mouth hung open as she tried to find the right words.

“I hope you feel better,” she finally said, looking Mabel in the eyes. “And Mabel, if you want to talk about anything, we can. Not even Dipper has to know.”

Pacifica let go of the stall door. But Mabel held it open a moment longer, eyes glistening before she nodded, and clicked it shut.


	4. Charleston

“Lo and behold, the three amigos have flown across the country on wings of steel, and now alight in my humble town to grace me with their presence,” announced Sam obsequiously, bowing deeply as he caught sight of Dipper, Pacifica, and Mabel.

The second leg of the flight had gone well, and Mabel’s stomach had settled down once she took the medicine Pacifica had provided. Still, as they descended the escalators towards the baggage claim and spotted Sam, Pacifica briefly felt Mabel squeeze her hand. Glancing over, Pacifica could see that Mabel’s face was stretched into a broad smile. If she still felt any nervousness, she was doing a much better job of hiding it.

“Sam!” Dipper replied enthusiastically as Pacifica rolled her eyes at Sam’s overly flowery comment. Dipper took the final steps of the escalator himself, quickly walking up to Sam and extending his hand. For a moment, they both kept their faces serious as they shook hands, before breaking into grins and stepping into a brief hug.

“It’s good to see you guys,” Sam continued, backing away from Dipper and extending his arms for a hug from Pacifica. As she stepped into his grasp and felt his arms around her, she opened an eye to catch sight of Dipper. Despite everything that had happened the last time they were together, there wasn’t a single flash of green jealousy on his face. She breathed deeply, happy to know that they had grown past the conflict.

Pacifica stepped away from Sam and glanced him up and down—he was always impeccably fashionable. And, being in a port city on the eastern seaboard, Pacifica often took her clothing cues from him. There were a lot more shops in the Charleston than there were in the backwoods of Gravity Falls.

This time proved no different. His feet were protected by leather sandals that bore the marks of having been well-used. A belt made of white cloth with shiny aluminum rings fastening it held up his khaki shorts. Instead of his usual button-down, he wore a pale blue polo shirt with the top two buttons undone. The weave of the shirt was incredibly tight and soft—looking closely, you could see the hint of a stripe pattern running through the threads. His hair extended down past his ears, but was playfully swept back into a manageable wave. A pair of blue-tinted sunglasses rested atop his head.

“Looking good, as always,” Pacifica pronounced. Sam seemed to relax slightly, having earned a passing grade.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Sam responded, before bowing again. Pacifica lightly punched him in response—it may have been proper etiquette to refer to everyone as _sir_ and _ma’am_ in formal settings, but this certainly wasn’t formal.

Sam grinned at the rebuke, having expected it. He turned to Dipper and continued to speak.

“Ever since we were kids, she always told me how badly I dressed. A few years ago, I decided to turn the tables on her and read up on fashion. She’s been playing catch-up ever since,” he laughed.

“Well, clearly neither of your fashion senses has rubbed off on me,” Dipper responded, looking himself up and down.

“You’re not that bad off,” continued Sam, glancing at Dipper’s wardrobe. “It’s practical for the woods of Oregon, but I think you’ll find that South Carolina is a very different beast. Speaking of which, let’s go ahead and find your luggage. It’s already three o’clock, and we want enough time to wander around downtown before we head to the Estate.”

Together, the four teenagers turned and walked towards the rotating conveyer belts, where the first suitcases from their flight had started to emerge. Since they had flown coach, their suitcases certainly weren’t going to be receiving any priority treatment, and they would have to wait for a while.

“So, how was the flight?” Sam asked as they watched for their luggage. “You flew American, I noticed. Not my favorite airline, but much better than United. I will never forgive United for what they did to me.”

“The flights were good,” Pacifica answered, waving away Dipper’s concerned look with a quick gesture. Sam’s beef with United Airlines would remain a mystery. “It was actually Mabel’s first flight. She was a little nervous, but she got over it.”

“Oh, Mabel!” Sam said, head quickly snapping to look in her direction. Mabel, who was sheltering behind Pacifica, perked up and looked at Sam. “I’m sorry I didn’t greet you earlier. Dipper and Pacifica distracted me with their fashion critique.”

With warm friendliness, he quickly spun around and extended his arms for a hug. Mabel raised her arms in acceptance, but leaned back slightly as she did so—their bodies didn’t touch, nor was Sam completely swallowed by the billowing fabric of her sweater as most people were.

“How’s Waddles doing?” Sam asked, stepping away. If he had noticed that the hug was lackluster, he didn’t show it—one benefit of being raised in an upper-class home was that he could hide all of his emotions until it was optimal to reveal them. He didn’t return to his former position next to Pacifica, instead choosing to stand in front of Mabel. Dipper continued to keep a vigilant eye on the conveyor belt.

“Waddles—” Mabel choked out, before she paused and gathered herself with a quick clearing of her throat. “Waddles is doing great! He’s all healed up from last Christmas. I would have brought him with us, but they don’t let pigs ride with people. Even Pacifica couldn’t swing that.”

“If we ever have an opportunity to fly anywhere,” responded Sam, placing a hand on Mabel’s shoulder. “I guarantee that I will buy a first class ticket for Waddles.”

“Thanks,” Mabel whispered, unable to raise her voice, or look Sam directly in the eye. Her body seemed to retreat from his touch and surge towards it at the same time. When she stole a brief glance at his face, however, she was greeted with an expression of confusion.

“Hmm…” he muttered to himself, loud enough for Pacifica to hear. His eyes ranged all over Mabel’s face, drinking in every bit of the color that had returned to her cheeks since Phoenix. The bags under her eyes still remained, but they were greatly lessened—Mabel had stolen a few precious minutes of sleep on the flight.

“What is it?” asked Mabel worriedly. “Is there something wrong? Do I have a zit? A fungus? An infection?” Her voice rose in pitch as she continued, earning half-disgusted glares from the crowd around them.

“No, no!” answered Sam, removing his hand and waving them in front of his face reassuringly. “It’s just… there’s something different about you, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.” He cocked his head curiously to the side as he spoke.

“Maybe I have glitter in my teeth?” Mabel volunteered, smiling nervously.

“That’s it!” Sam said, causing Mabel to sigh in relief. Having glitter in her teeth was nothing dangerous or unusual.

“I knew it,” Mabel chastised herself. “Pacifica, could I borrow your water bottle for a second?” Pacifica had started to automatically reach for the bottle when Sam interrupted her.

“No, it’s your braces,” Sam followed up, pointing at his own mouth. Mabel’s tongue ran over her teeth instinctively. “You finally got those off. I remember you telling me how much they sucked over Christmas.”

“Oh, I did do that!” Mabel responded, perking up as Pacifica slowly removed her hand from her bag. To Pacifica’s right, Dipper stepped up to the conveyor belt and started to remove their emerging suitcases. “They came off in March. It’s been great to eat without tasting metal.”

“I would imagine so,” laughed Sam. “And, just to celebrate, I’ll call ahead to make sure that our menu this week is the most indulgently flavorful it can be!” Mabel swallowed in response.

“Come on, Mabel,” Dipper called from behind her as he passed her her suitcase. It was the same one they had used on their trip to Seattle—once upon a time, it had been pink. Now, however, it was covered in stickers and scratch marks. “Don’t harass Sam about food until we actually get settled in.” Mabel’s brow furrowed at Dipper’s comment, but Sam cut her off before she had a chance to respond.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, gently reaching towards Mabel’s hand and taking her suitcase. “If I have any excuse to tell the chef to pull out all the stops, I’ll take it. I’m just glad that Mabel’s provided one,” he continued, bowing slightly. The blush already in Mabel’s cheeks intensified.

“Here,” said Pacifica, passing one of her suitcases on to Mabel. “Just because Sam’s being a proper gentleman doesn’t mean that you get out of rolling luggage. You just get to carry mine instead.”

“Isn’t that Dipper’s job?” whined Mabel, though she took the handle of the suitcase without complaint. It wasn’t strenuous work, and it was, after all, surprisingly difficult to roll two suitcases at once. One offhanded complaint from Dipper wasn’t enough to earn her ire.

“Dipper’s got his own suitcase to worry about,” answered Pacifica as her boyfriend removed the final piece of luggage from the conveyor belt. “And now that we have Sam, he can do some of the work for us.”

“Why else am I here?” asked Sam good-naturedly as he began leading the way towards the exit. Dipper and Mabel, having never been in the Charleston airport before, followed his lead. Pacifica, of course, had landed here many times, but still walked in between the twins. She considered giving Mabel a gentle nudge to go up and walk next to Sam, but refrained.

The baggage claim opened out into a wide and expansive concourse, topped by a dome rimmed with windows. The radiant Carolina sun shone through the glass, bathing the entire airport in a soft light. The floor was made of gray tile, interlaced with lines of navy blue. From above, the lines made a symmetric and spiraling pattern, though no one on the ground could see it. The walls and support columns were a dull and pale yellow, almost like sand. Not a hard and unyielding sand, like the deserts of Phoenix, but a soft and pliable sand, wet with salt water from the ocean and marshes.

As the teenagers approached a large pair of sliding glass doors, they could feel the blast of hot air entering from outside. The air was wet, heavy with humidity from the ocean. Breathing deeply, they could smell and taste the salt drifting in off of the harbor. In the air, both airplanes and seagulls could be seen circling above. At a certain distance, it was difficult to tell which was which.

Dipper and Pacifica paused briefly to remove their jackets, tucking them into their carry-ons. Dipper now wore a stone grey t-shirt, and breathed with relief as the air gently blew across his skin. Pacifica grimaced—she appreciated Dipper’s arms, cross-hatched with scars and cords of muscle, but she didn’t appreciate the dark sweat stains that she knew would inevitably form.

Mabel, however, left her sweater on. As Dipper and Pacifica returned to the group, they could see sweat already beading up on her forehead and neck as the tight weave captured all of the heat from the surrounding air, and all of the heat emanating from her body.

Emerging out into the sun, Sam and Mabel both immediately flipped their sunglasses down over their eyes—Sam’s world vanishing into shades of lapis, while Mabel’s took on a rose-colored tinge. After a brief moment of fumbling, Dipper and Pacifica retrieved their sunglasses as well. Dipper’s were a pair of caramel aviators, while Pacifica’s were tinted pink, and almost perfectly circular. A thin wire bridge supported them across her narrow nose.

Sam led them across a concrete walkway, heading to a parking garage located across the drop-off zone. Mabel couldn’t resist peeking over the edge as they crossed the highway, the asphalt below them covered in a shifting web of cars, shuttles, and people saying goodbye. In the distance, the spires of the City of Charleston could be seen, piercing the sky like needles—and, beyond that, the shattering shimmer of the sea.

They all breathed a sigh of relief as they crossed into the shade of the parking garage—even Sam, though he was far more used to the heat and humidity than the others. He had been lucky enough to secure a parking spot on the same level, and quickly headed towards the end of a line of vehicles. Dipper’s eyes danced up and down the license plates, trying to guess which car someone like Sam would drive.

Sam finally drifted to a stop behind an Audi, painted a luminous pearlescent white. He quickly pulled out his keys and opened the trunk, loading suitcases into the car while Dipper circled the vehicle admiringly. Pacifica rolled her eyes—she knew that Dipper knew next to nothing about cars. But, whenever he got in someone else’s vehicle for the first time, a switch seemed to flip on in his brain. Pacifica coupled her eye roll with a bemused smile—there was no harm in letting him have his fun.

Dipper crouched down to peek in the windows, confirming that it was a truly impressive vehicle. The inside was a patchwork of black and coffee-colored leather, with honeycomb stitching on the ergonomically designed seats—only interrupted by the logo _RS_ emblazoned in the center. Atop, two panes of glass created a moon roof that could be extended or retracted at will, gently sloping towards the rear. The frame of the vehicle was broad and low to the ground, lines pointing forward with an aggressiveness that revealed the power within the engine. It wasn’t quite a sports car, but it was enough to show that whoever owned it had money, and wasn’t afraid to use it.

The one aspect that caught Dipper off-guard was the door for the gas tank. It was a rectangle with curved corners, sculpted to fit with the slope of the car’s body. However, it wasn’t the shape of the door that Dipper found surprising—it was that it was there at all. 

“This is a really impressive car,” announced Dipper, finally finishing his inspection. “Though, I’m a little surprised that it runs on gas, since you’re all about environmentalism.”

“He just couldn’t afford a Tesla like me,” Pacifica followed up, nonchalantly inspecting her nails, though her smile betrayed the joke.

“Blondie, this RS7 Sportback costs more than your little Model Y ever could, no matter how many bottles of tequila Elon packs in the trunk,” Sam retorted, closing the trunk with a satisfying slam. The girls’ suitcases were safely stowed in the back, though Dipper’s still sat on the pavement. “But, you’re right Dipper,” he continued as he walked up to the side of the vehicle. “I’m definitely a big fan of the planet, and I’m definitely a big fan of American manufacturing. But there just aren’t any charging stations around here. I mean, there are some, but they’re not nearly as common. There are some benefits to living on the west coast.”

“I’m more surprised that you didn’t get a convertible,” Mabel commented wryly as Dipper nodded in understanding.

“You may be able to handle convertibles with that California weather,” Sam answered as he opened the left rear door and hoisted Dipper’s suitcase into it. Dipper winced as the wheels impacted the immaculate leather, but it was Sam’s car to do with as he pleased. “But the last thing you want when a hurricane comes through is for the roof of your expensive car to be made of cloth and plastic.

“And, sorry girls, but there wasn’t room in the trunk for all of your suitcases, so someone’s going to have to sit in the middle seat in the back,” he continued sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

“I volunteer,” Pacifica answered, grabbing Dipper’s hand as she sensed an opportunity. “Dipper can sit with me, and you can chauffer us around. Mabel, you can have shotgun.”

Mabel’s eyes flashed daggers towards Pacifica, who greeted them with a cold stare. It was friendly anger, and both of them knew it—but that didn’t make it any less potent.

“Sounds good,” Sam said, oblivious as he tossed his keys in the air and caught them with a jangle. “Let’s go ahead and get going, then! I want you all to have a chance to look around Charleston before dark.”

Sam turned and opened up the driver’s door, sliding into the seat with the practice of someone who knew his vehicle inside and out. As he did so, he lightly tapped the button to unlock all of the other doors. Dipper stepped up and ushered Pacifica through the rear passenger’s side door.

Before Dipper got in behind her, he briefly found himself directly facing Mabel, who stood with her arms crossed and eyes half-lidded in annoyance. She tapped her fingers on her sweater as she waited for Dipper to get out of her way, the tapping half of impatience and half of nervousness. Dipper nodded his head apologetically as he clambered into the backseat and shut the door.

He pulled the seatbelt across his chest before he relaxed back into the leather, feeling the padding within the seat contour and cushion his body. Pacifica, quite at ease, turned and gently reclined onto him as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and chest. Even if Dipper’s suitcase hadn’t been in the other seat, this is where Pacifica would have been—except with more legroom.

As Mabel sat down in the passenger seat and adjusted her seatbelt, she admired the extremely luxurious interior of the car—it was all leather, metal, and glass, stitched together with immense care and attention to detail. The entire frame rumbled and shook as Sam pushed the button to start the engine, the shaking quickly diminishing as the engine found its pace.

“Alright everybody,” Sam began as he put the car in reverse and backed out, checking both his mirrors and the rearview camera. He stretched his arm and put it on the back of Mabel’s seat—Pacifica immediately noticed Mabel’s eyes tracing the arc of his muscles. “Thank you for signing up for Southeast Sightseeing. With all the modern day conveniences one could ever want, we like to travel in luxury!”

With that, he slammed the car into drive and surged forward, though he was only able to travel a few feet before he was forced to apply the brakes and wait for his turn to go down the exit ramp. Pacifica snorted with laughter and snuggled back more closely into Dipper.

Sam’s expert hand and knowledge of the roads ushered them out of the airport with no difficulties, and onto a small series of roads racing towards the city center. Though the sun would stay up until late in the evening, long after most people would have eaten dinner, stores would be closing at their normal times.

Even though the moon roof was closed, the rays of the sun striking in through the windows were enough to heat any skin they touched. The air conditioning within the car was gently blowing, which was enough for the sleeveless Dipper, Sam, and Pacifica.

“Hey, Sam,” asked Mabel shakily, fanning herself. “Do you think you could turn up the AC?” She swallowed as she asked the question, not wanting to impose since everyone else appeared comfortable.

“Oh, sure,” he answered quickly, gently tapping on the control panel to lower the passenger side temperature and increase the velocity of the fans. Pacifica shivered in response, prompting Dipper to pull her more closely into him. “Though, it would be a lot cooler if you took the sweater off. We only have about two months of winter here, and two weeks of fall—and even then, it’s questionable.”

“I’ll leave it on for now,” Mabel responded meekly. “Once we get to… your place, and I have a chance to unpack, I’ll be better suited for the weather.”

“Fine by me,” answered Sam. “Just so you know, though, it’s not going to get colder once the sun goes down. The heat here lingers.”

“That’s what makes night swimming so fun,” added Pacifica, knowing full well what Dipper’s response to that would be.

“Night swimming?” Dipper asked, panicked. “No, bad idea. That’s when the sharks come out. You won’t catch me in the water after the sun goes down.”

“That’s actually a misconception,” Sam added, glancing at Dipper in the rearview mirror. Thankfully, Pacifica was short enough to not obstruct his view. “Sharks are most active during dawn and dusk. Day and night are usually safe—relatively speaking. Shark attacks are still extremely rare—and big sharks aren’t common around here anyway. It’s not the Bahamas.”

“It’s still nice, though,” chimed in Pacifica, remembering all of the years that she had spent here with Sam—either wandering the streets of Charleston, or the wet and sandy coast.

“Yes,” Sam sighed, looking out over the city as the car crested a minor hill and began to descend into the downtown area. “Very nice.”

Dipper and Mabel didn’t answer, as they were caught up in the majestic sight of the city before them. There were office buildings and skyscrapers around the periphery that may have dominated the view, but the true attraction was found in the center.

A forest of church steeples spiked into the air, flowering out into buildings below with hundreds of years of history, made of ancient wood, stained glass, and carved stone. The houses and businesses, none more than four stories tall, all seemed to share the same quaint and distinctive style—windows with open shutters, pointed roofs, and bright coats of paint.

As the four teenagers penetrated further into the heart of the city, Dipper began to pick out more details—metallic stars and bolts that seemed to run through almost all of the houses, often accompanied by large cracks in the brick masonry nearby. Palmetto trees grew on the frequent patches of green, the large and crosshatched panels of bark blooming out into large, shady fronds that drifted in the wind.

Next to him, Pacifica turned and moved his arm so that she could get a better view. Over the years, she had developed a mental map of all the different shops in the area, and was able to keep track of which new ones had appeared, and which old ones had vanished. In recent years, there had been a dramatic influx of shops that insisted on making all of their signage cursive.

The people walking the streets were also worth watching—in this part of the city, the crowd was mostly made up of tourists. There were lots of sun hats and shorts, accompanied by floral prints and t-shirts that didn’t fit anyone well. Pacifica shook her head—even in the fashion district, no one knew how to dress. Inherent fanciness was only endemic to Paris, it seemed.

Mabel’s eyes were wide as they progressed through the streets, drinking in the displays in the store windows—though she focused more on the dogs that many of the pedestrians were walking. However, as the car pulled to a stop in front of a light, she let out a shriek before quickly stifling it.

“Is that a horse!?!” she exclaimed, pointing out of the window at the lane next to them. Pacifica and Dipper both craned their necks to get a better look.

A large, open-air carriage made out of wood sat next to them, painted blue and trimmed with gold. A red cloth canopy stretched over the top, sheltering the occupants from the sun. The couple sitting atop it glanced around, scarcely paying attention to the car next to them, or the scenery around them, so lost were they in the experience of the city and of each other. The driver, reclining comfortably in front of them, was focused solely on his steeds.

A pair of sleek, chestnut brown horses were harnessed to the carriage, bobbing their heads as they waited for the command to advance. Their legs terminated in tufts of white fur and sharp, well-maintained hooves. And, though they wore blinders, Mabel could see a pattern of white on their faces. The sun, steadily lower in the sky, threw dappled shadows on their backs through the palmetto fronds, casting their fur in a rotating palette of burning gold and cool cocoa.

Mabel’s face was pressed against the glass. The carriage driver looked at her strangely, then smiled and waved. She waved back.

“It is a horse,” answered Sam, laughing. “They do carriage rides here pretty much nonstop. They have historic tours, where you ride with a bunch of other people, or you can rent a private one.”

“Have you ever done one before?” asked Mabel as the light turned green, and both their car and the carriage began to advance. Mabel’s eyes followed the horses as they left the carriage behind, eventually turning so far as to look directly at Dipper and Pacifica, whose wide eyes met hers in kind resignation. “Which do you like more?”

“I’ve done each of them a couple of times,” Sam responded, eyes searching for a parking space. “The best one is the private one. It can get a little expensive, but the experience is so much better. Plus, since those stables aren’t trying to lower the price as much as possible, they can treat their horses much better.”

“If I saw anyone being mean to one of those horses, I would cut it loose and we would ride off into the night,” Mabel announced emphatically as Sam turned down a side street, having spotted a place to park.

“I think they would catch you,” said Sam as he deftly maneuvered the Audi into a too-small slot between two much larger trucks.

“That doesn’t matter,” Mabel fired back, waving her hand dismissively. “What matters is that, for a brief moment, we would both taste freedom.” Sam laughed at that, and neither Dipper nor Pacifica could keep themselves from smiling.

“Come on then, Miss Starr,” Sam chuckled as he opened his door and stepped out onto the street. “We’ve got a city to explore.”

“Miss Starr?” asked Mabel, stepping out onto the sidewalk with Dipper and Pacifica. Pacifica paused to reach back into the car, pulling out a small purse and draping it over her shoulder. “Is that my nickname now? Do I have a nickname? Did you just give me a nickname?”

“Uhh… I mean, it was a joking nickname, but it can be your nickname if you like,” Sam stammered. “I just thought it was funny, given that you were talking about stealing a horse.”

“Miss Starr,” said Mabel to herself, spinning around dramatically. “Yeah. I like that.”

“Then it shall be done, Miss Starr,” replied Sam, bowing with the same obsequious tone that he had used in the airport—a combination of joking and sincerity that no one else could replicate.

“What does ‘Miss Starr’ even mean?” asked Dipper as Sam joined them on the sidewalk and began to lead the way back to the main street.

“Belle Starr was a bandit, back in the old days of the Wild West,” Sam answered, turning onto the main thoroughfare. “She got all dressed up, rode sidesaddle, and was still a great criminal. But ‘Belle’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.”

“Well, that is the one thing I know my sister for,” smiled Dipper. “She’s a criminal mastermind.”

“Naturally,” Mabel responded, tucking her hair behind her ear with a dramatic swing.

Walking down the sidewalk, they quickly fell into a pattern—much like they had been positioned in the car, Sam and Mabel walked ahead of Dipper and Pacifica, who moved at much more relaxed pace, arm in arm. They steadily progressed down the street, closer and closer to the harbor and the glistening ocean water. As palpable as the scent of the sea had been at the airport, it was now much more potent and invigorating.

Soon, they found themselves in front of a small store, where Mabel ground to a halt. Sam took two more steps before he realized that she had stopped, and turned to face the rest of the group.

Pacifica and Dipper slowed, looking into the display window. There were three mannequins in plain view—the one to the left wore a knee-length dress meant for business meetings, while the one to the right was slightly farther back and wore a swimsuit. The center one, however, was the real showstopper.

It wore an absolutely magnificent dress, made of layer upon ruffling layer of blue and white fabric, ever so often accented with a line of yellow thread, or a fold of pink. The expansive skirt was cinched tight around the waist, while a starched white blouse with sharp creases pressed into it covered the torso. The head was covered with an expansive straw hat, accented with a pale blue ribbon and a burst of white and gold flowers.

Pacifica leaned back slightly, spotting the name of the store emblazoned on the door— _Magnolia’s_. She grimaced at the name—not only was it cliched for the region, but it was in an ornate and flowery script, making it practically illegible. However, as Mabel began to speak and Pacifica heard the crack in her voice, she knew her fate was sealed.

“This place is so cute!” exclaimed Mabel, quickly glancing from mannequin to mannequin. “Pacifica, we have to go in.”

“Can’t we come back another day?” answered Pacifica, slouching. “We have all week, and we were about to get to the harbor.”

“No, we can’t!” Mabel fired back, pulling on Pacifica’s arm in an effort to drag her through the door. Pacifica looked back at Dipper pleadingly.

“Sorry, Pacifica,” he responded, shrugging. “I think Mabel’s made up her mind. Plus, like you said, we have all week. Who knows when they might sell out of the perfect dress?”

Pacifica stared icy daggers at Dipper as she finally acquiesced, and let Mabel usher her into the shop. Dipper smiled and waved as the two girls vanished inside, knowing exactly what he had just condemned his girlfriend too.

“We’ll meet you back at the car!” Dipper called out as the door closed behind them.

“You’re going to hear about that tonight,” chuckled Sam as the two men turned and continued walking down the street.

“I know,” Dipper responded, sighing happily. “But it is Mabel’s first time in the city. She deserves to have a little fun, and I want Pacifica to make sure she doesn’t spend all of her money in one place.”

“Is she not good with money then?” Sam asked, probingly.

“She’s… not bad,” Dipper responded, unsure of how to answer the question. It was an awfully personal question to ask with no clear motivation, and he didn’t know where Sam was going with it. However, he was certain that the older boy hadn’t meant anything bad by it—despite the wealth disparity between the Southeasts and the Pines, Sam wasn’t the kind to mock. “She’s just never had to manage her own stuff before,” Dipper continued. “I’ve always been the one to keep track of that. She’s not dumb, though—she’s smarter than I am if she wants to be.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Sam smiled as they paused at an intersection, waiting for a light to change. Another horse and carriage sat at the intersection—this time, it was loaded down with tourists. It did look much less comfortable than the private carriage Mabel had marveled at earlier. “Especially since you’re Dr. Ford’s protégé.”

Across the road stood a long, low building made of brick. The walls were interrupted by arches at regular intervals, allowing for a steady flow of foot traffic through the space inside. From within the building, the aromatic scent of roasting spices drifted out into the surrounding streets, accompanied by the joyous noise of merchants, both buying and selling. Even though Dipper didn’t know their destination, he instantly knew they would be passing through there.

“It’s true,” Dipper answered with a grin. “I wouldn’t have been able to do half the things I’ve done without her. She’s saved my life before. Her brains just come out in different ways. She’s artsy and creative; I’m cold and mathematical.”

“Based on the sweat trails running down your back,” laughed Sam, “you don’t look cold.” As the traffic light changed and traffic slowed to a stop, they hurried across the road and found themselves before the brick building.

“Not literally cold,” Dipper replied as he looked at the letters arcing above the main entrance to the structure— _Charleston City Market._ “Cognitively, emotionally.” Sam led the way into the market, with Dipper close on his heels.

Dipper breathed deeply as he took in the scents of the market—it wasn’t pleasant. The scent of horse and sweat was mixed with the sizzling crackle of roasting meat, and the light sweetness of rising bread. Altogether, it was painfully and marvelously human.

Lining the walls were numerous stalls of merchants, the vast majority of them Black, selling all kinds of items. One merchant had bolts of colorful patterned cloth, hand-dyed to a vibrancy you couldn’t find in stores. Many of the stalls were piled high with intricately woven baskets of fragrant sweetgrass—and, whenever the owners weren’t busy making a sale, they were pulling the strands of the plants apart to weave another.

Another, older woman wearing an indigo sash sat cross-legged behind a small table filled with roses made of intricate sweetgrass strands folded over onto each other. Even at this distance, Dipper could smell the sugary fragrance drifting up from the flowers.

“You don’t seem that cold to me, even emotionally,” replied Sam, not realizing that Dipper had fallen behind. When he didn’t respond, however, Sam quickly turned and rejoined his friend.

“Pacifica’s helped a lot with that,” Dipper finally answered as he started to scan the rows of flowers. Finding one that he liked, he reached for his wallet and handed the woman behind the table a five dollar bill. She took it with a gap-toothed smile as Dipper picked up the souvenir that he had chosen, and tucked the stem of it into his pocket. No receipt was necessary.

“Maybe Mabel’s not the one who’s bad with money,” Sam shook his head as the two boys continued on their way.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Dipper, looking at him incredulously. “I’m a tourist. I have an excuse for buying stuff like this.”

“Fair enough,” sighed Sam, shoulders slouching as they passed through another section of the market—it seemed to stretch on for blocks, with shouting vendors, luminous colors, and a maelstrom of smells. “I just feel a little weird buying things here, I guess.”

“Why?” Dipper asked curiously. “It’s not like you’re short on money, Mr. ‘I drive a really fancy Audi.’”

“It’s not the money,” Sam continued, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “It’s the cultural aspect of it.”

“Oh,” Dipper replied, his face falling. Having grown up in California, the intricacies of race weren’t foreign to him, but they existed here in a present and pervasive way that he wasn’t familiar with. “Just because you’re White, and they’re all Black, or… what?” As Dipper spoke, he noticed several of the vendors’ heads turn to follow them, their expressions a mixture of pride and concern.

“No, it’s not just that,” Sam answered, shrugging. “It’s that I’m a Southeast, and we did some _really_ bad shit back in the day. Like… the Northwests definitely exploited the natives and lumberfolk around Gravity Falls, but my family… it was their entire existence. Cruelty for cruelty’s sake.

“And it’s not just me! If you look around here, you’ll see a hundred other boys my age in sandals, khaki shorts, and a polo shirt. They may not all have my family’s legacy, of course, but they buy into the system. I look at them, and I genuinely understand where the negative stereotypes about people like us come from.

“And now, you, I, and all these other tourists are here walking through this place with all the money we need, and these people are selling their culture to us to survive. It seems odd to me—like, should I feel good that they’ve been able to create successful businesses, or should I feel bad that they’ve had to resort to pawning off knickknacks that couldn’t possibly represent the depth of their heritage in any meaningful way?”

Dipper paused as he thought Sam’s problem over. It certainly wasn’t something that he had expected to be discussing with the blonde boy, but it was obvious how much it bothered him. The more Dipper thought about it, the more confused he became—looking back into his past, he could see that this wasn’t just a problem native to Charleston. Native Americans definitely fell into a similar category.

“I think that the reason why you’re buying it matters,” Dipper finally replied as they exited the market and reemerged onto a city street. Sam turned a corner, Dipper in lockstep beside him. “All people have the right to do with their culture as they please, even if the reasons why are a little iffy. But, if you’re buying things to genuinely appreciate them, and not out of a sense of mockery or guilt, then I see no reason why it would be exploitative. I know they’d appreciate it.”

“See?” responded Sam with a smile. “That wasn’t a cold or calculated response at all. It was genuine, honest, and heartfelt. Pacifica’s been working wonders with you.”

“She has,” Dipper responded, happy that he was able to help set Sam’s mind slightly more at ease.

Together, they crossed one final street and entered into a long, narrow park that ran alongside the harbor. The patches of grass in the park were studded with palmetto trees, the rustling fronds flowing in the wind giving the air a musical quality. In the center of the interlacing maze of concrete sidewalks was a large fountain shaped like a pineapple. Beyond the fountain, the water glistened and shone as the descending sun cast the sky into ever richer shades of orange.

“What about you?” Dipper asked as they advanced towards the guardrail next to the sea. “You know all about me and Pacifica, but I don’t know anything about your love life. Surely you have some beautiful Swedish girl skiing the Alps right now.”

“First off, the Alps are in Switzerland, not Sweden,” answered Sam with a laugh. “And second, no, not at the moment. I had a couple girlfriends in high school, of course, but none of that worked out.” Sam’s face was downcast as he and Dipper leaned against the railing.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dipper replied, shaking his head. “I know that I’m really lucky with how things have worked out with Pacifica.”

“Oh, no,” Sam laughed. “Don’t feel bad. One of them had the intelligence of a shallot and the other was a bit cracked in the head. Youthful mistakes. Plus, since I’m going across the country for college this fall, it’s probably for the best that I don’t have anything tying me down back here.”

“Stanford, right?” asked Dipper with a smile. Stanford was a short drive away from Piedmont, and Dipper did legitimately enjoy spending time with Sam. Plus, Dipper and Mabel were entering their senior year of high school. The possibilities after that were wide open.

“Stanford,” Sam confirmed. “I’m looking forward to it, really. There’s all kinds of mischief I could get up to out there.”

“Definitely, definitely,” Dipper replied, trailing off as he turned around to drink in the sights of the city at the edge of the water. A row of houses, framed in white and painted in even more vibrant hues than the ones in the center of the city, stretched out to his left.

“Though, I am going to miss this,” Sam continued, gesturing out at the water. Dipper spun slowly, taking note of everything around them.

To the left towered a large silver bridge that Dipper didn’t know the name of—it wasn’t quite as magnificent as the Golden Gate Bridge back in San Francisco, but the arrow-straight lines of the support cables and the gentle bowing of the diamond towers were still a wonder to look at, especially as the sun glinted off the steel.

Across the harbor sat the USS Yorktown, a retired aircraft carrier that had been converted into a museum. Even from here, Dipper could tell how absolutely massive it was, and how incredible it was that something of that size could float. To the right was a small island, on which sat the squat structure of Fort Sumter—the place where the Civil War had started. Two ferries crossed paths in the open water—one heading to the fort, and the other going back to land.

“Dipper,” announced Sam, firmly. “Now that we’ve gotten away from the girls, there is something I want to talk about.”

“Am I in trouble?” replied Dipper with a smile, unsure of what Sam was getting at.

“Not yet,” Sam answered, turning to face him. “You know that I love Pacifica like a sister. And, since she doesn’t have a brother, that means that I get to give you this speech.

“You’re a good man, Dipper. And you and Pacifica go well together, even after your fight last Christmas. But, if you ever hurt her, I will not hesitate to put you in the hospital.”

Dipper drew back at Sam’s aggressive comment. Even during the confrontation last Christmas, Dipper didn’t think he had done anything to make himself seem like a threat. It wasn’t Sam’s place to get involved, and Dipper could feel a biting retort on his tongue before he took a deep breath and calmed himself.

He took a moment to imagine himself in Sam’s shoes—of how he would feel if Mabel got into a relationship that he felt was unsafe, or even a relationship that could last more than a couple of weeks and grow into something more. Dipper would do anything to protect her.

“You know what, Sam?” Dipper finally responded, extending his hand. “Deal.”

Sam shook Dipper’s hand with a smile, and the two men turned to look back out over the water.


	5. King Street

The metal clothing hangars rattled on the painted supports as Pacifica slowly and methodically made her way through them. She sighed as she looked around the store, unimpressed by the selection.

The building was long and narrow, separated into three different sections. The front of the store, where she and Mabel currently were, contained all of the clothes that were available for purchase. The second section consisted of two three-faceted mirrors, facing each other on opposite walls and allowing for a customer to get a good look at all angles of a dress. The final section of the store, divided from the former two by a thin curtain, contained four small dressing rooms.

Despite the low square footage of the store, however, both Pacifica and Mabel were able to move around freely. There were only a couple of other dedicated shoppers in the space—the vast majority of people were tourists who drifted in, saw the price tags, and then immediately drifted back out.

The store couldn’t seem to make up its mind as to what it wanted to be—in the room that contained actual merchandise, only one wall was dedicated to dresses. The freestanding racks in the middle held both blouses and pants, while the other available wall held a wide selection of hats.

Some of the hats would have only been appropriate at the Kentucky Derby, while others were made of wool and were impractical for a South Carolina summer. Only a narrow band of them were truly fashionable. Also against the hat wall was the cashier—an older woman with white hair who sat behind a glass counter sheltering gaudy jewelry. It wasn’t quite as overpriced as the turquoise had been in Phoenix, but it was still significantly marked up.

Upon walking in, Mabel had been disappointed to discover that the ornate dress she had seen in the window was both unbelievably expensive, and required a preorder of at least two weeks. However, once she adjusted her expectations, she started to wander around the store aimlessly, not focusing on any one thing in particular.

Occasionally, however, something would catch her eye, and she would quickly pounce on it, pulling it from the rack and draping it over her shoulder like a coiled rope. Pacifica tried to piece the puzzle of the brunette’s behavior together as she watched Mabel freely roam the aisles.

For the last ten hours, Mabel had been acting strangely. Pacifica was, by this point, well-adapted to the usual brand of Mabel weirdness, but this was something different entirely. She had glared at Dipper with an anger she had never shown before, and she had gotten sick at the mere mention of Sam’s name. For a girl who had gorged herself on industrial quantities of sprinkles with no problems on several different occasions, it was a dramatic turnaround. Around Sam, Mabel’s enthusiastic, extroverted personality seemed almost shy.

Pacifica was all but certain what the reason for the change was, but wasn’t sure how to best broach the topic with Mabel. Pacifica had picked up on how differently Mabel was feeling, but for the girl who was actually having those experiences, it must have been a thousand times more intense.

“So, Mabel,” she began, letting go of a hangar and stepping around a clothing rack to greet the brunette, who had just pulled another dress from the wall. “Why exactly did you want to go shopping here?”

“I’m a girl,” answered Mabel, shrugging. “Aren’t girls supposed to like shopping?” She turned away from Pacifica and continued to rummage through the fabric.

“It’s a common stereotype,” Pacifica fired back. “And believe me, I like shopping more than most girls. But I know you, and you don’t like shopping. Not for clothes, anyway—you make those by hand.”

“I make sweaters by hand,” corrected Mabel. “And occasionally pants. And socks. And hats. And scarves. But not all clothes! I’m not good with thin fabrics.”

“And that’s why you wanted to get a dress that looks like it’s from the 1830’s?” Pacifica asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Partly,” answered Mabel, adding another dress to her shoulder before turning and marching towards the dressing room. “But mostly, I just wanted to spend some time with my good friend Pacifica.”

“I’m flattered,” Pacifica answered flatly, noticing how quickly Mabel turned to avoid directly facing her. “But, I’m not sure exactly why you’ve decided to go _dress_ shopping, given that we’ve never been dress shopping before.”

“You heard Sam,” Mabel replied, stepping into a dressing room. She paused briefly before continuing to justify herself. “It’s going to be super hot here, and I need lighter clothing than a sweater to survive!”

“But you brought lighter clothes!” Pacifica retorted as Mabel closed the door. The blonde glanced around and quickly spotted a chair next to the dressing room. She took a seat and continued to talk—there was no one in the store that she cared about overhearing them. “I know! I helped you pack them.”

“Yeah, but not a dress or anything!” answered Mabel, talking louder than she needed to. “I wasn’t expecting this to be a special occasion!”

“I know the Fourth of July Party is going to be intimidating, especially since both the Northwest and Southeast parents are going to be there, but I promise that they at least try to be more casual than usual! There’s no need for you to go out of your way to try to get a fancy dress, unless you just want it as a souvenir. And, if you do want a souvenir, might I volunteer the information that there’s a giant local market with beautiful sweetgrass baskets right down the street?”

Pacifica sighed lightly. The Charleston City Market wasn’t fancy, and that was what she enjoyed about it—it was unbridled humanity, and one of the few places she had had the confidence to be herself before Dipper had come into her life. Once, she and Sam had slipped away from their parents and spent almost an hour wandering the crowded, hollering aisles.

“Not the Fourth of July Party, silly,” Mabel laughed as Pacifica heard the clatter of a hanger against a metal peg—Mabel was no doubt about to don the first dress for her review. “I’m talking about tonight. My brace removal party!”

“Oh,” answered Pacifica in placid surprise. She hadn’t even considered tonight a formal party, even though they would all be eating with Sam and his family—even after Sam had promised to spruce up the menu. For her, it was just going to be dinner at a friend’s house. But for Mabel, she supposed, it could shape up to be much more. “I hadn’t thought about that. I don’t think that it’s going to be a big party, but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to be a little more dressed up than usual.”

“We can get you a dress too, if you like!” chirped Mabel as the dressing room door opened and she stepped out, spinning once in front of Pacifica before sliding to a stop on bare feet. “So, what do you think?” she asked, extending her arms suppliantly.

Pacifica struggled to keep her jaw from dropping in shock. Mabel stood before in her in an avalanche of fabric, ruffle upon ruffle extending from her waist so that no one could approach within three feet of her. The cloth was all various shades of pink, interlaced with occasional sparkling ribbons of a somehow even brighter pink. The top of the dress was made of a darker fabric, though a sash of the brighter ruffles from the bottom ran up and over her left shoulder. Her right shoulder was left exposed, her pale skin the only thing somehow brighter than the dress itself. Other than the lack of feathers, it appeared remarkably similar to the dress that she had handcrafted for the Northwest Fest during the twins’ first summer in town.

“Well?” asked Mabel, spinning again. Pacifica leaned back to avoid getting a mouthful of ruffle. “What’s the verdict?” Pacifica gave her another once over before reaching a conclusion.

“You look like strawberry ice cream,” she finally pronounced with a sigh, though she tried to keep her voice cheery.

“That’s good, then!” Mabel replied, walking over to stand in the three-faceted mirror. She started spinning again, almost losing her balance. Pacifica’s reflexes immediately carried her out of her chair to offer Mabel a supporting arm, which she gladly took.

Pacifica sucked air in between her teeth as she tried to figure out the best way to let Mabel down gently.

“I know how much you like strawberry ice cream,” Pacifica continued, clasping her hands together. “Even though I have told you many, many times that most strawberry ice cream is artificially flavored and has nothing to do with actual strawberries.”

“I remember you crushing my dreams,” Mabel replied, spinning again.

“I do enjoy doing that,” Pacifica admitted, cocking her head to the side. “But that’s not the point. The point is that, if you want this dress for a dinner party, it may be a bit… much.”

“A bit much?” Mabel pouted, spinning in the other direction. “This dress is the most ‘me’ dress in this entire store.”

“And you, as a person, are fantastic,” Pacifica reassured her. “But this dress, I’m sorry, is not as fabulous as you are. This is gaudy. You are not gaudy.”

“I like sparkles, though,” Mabel answered, crestfallen. “What does it mean if this dress isn’t good for a dinner party?”

“It means that, in the future, when you’re the one hosting dinner parties, then you can tell everyone to dress exactly how you want them to,” smiled Pacifica, placing a hand on Mabel’s left shoulder. The fabric under her hand crinkled like tin foil. “For now, though, it may be better if you toned things down a bit. Go with something a little more understated, unless you want the Southeasts to throw us out to sleep in the swamp.”

“Fiiiiine,” Mabel acknowledged, throwing back her head. “I’ll go try on another dress. But we’re keeping this one on the table!”

“That’s fine,” replied Pacifica. “What’s important is that we spend the time to go through these dresses and find the one that you like the most.”

“I like the pink one,” Mabel immediately answered.

“The one you like _and_ one that is suitable for a South Carolina dinner party,” Pacifica followed up, qualifying her statement. “Now, go try on another one.”

“’Too much Mabel,’” Mabel muttered to herself as she turned and vanished into the dressing room, the door closing behind her. “There’s no such thing!” As Pacifica returned to her seat, she heard a massive thud as the mountain of fabric Mabel had been wearing collapsed to the floor.

Pacifica hoped that she hadn’t been too mean. The dress really did scream ‘Mabel,’ but adding such a loud dress on top of her already exuberant personality may have been too much for the Southeasts to handle. Sam would have taken it with ease, but Stephen and Sophia wouldn’t have reacted well. If Mabel did have an interest in Sam, as Pacifica strongly suspected, it would be best to leave his parents with an immediately pleasant taste in their mouths, instead of the acquired taste of Mabel Juice.

“Is there anything I can help you two ladies with?” asked the white-hair cashier, who peeked her head into the dressing room area. Pacifica started as she entered—evidently, there were no other customers in the main area of the store that she needed to keep an eye on.

“We’re fine for now, thanks,” Pacifica answered. “But we are going to be here for a while.”

“Take your time, sweetheart,” the older woman answered, casually waving a hand at Pacifica, fingers covered with gold rings. “The sun stays up so long that we might as well be open all night!” She immediately started laughing at her own joke, the corners of her mouth pushing up her sagging skin so that her eyes almost vanished.

Pacifica contorted her face into a false smile and laughed, a plastic sound emanating from her throat. It wasn’t a funny joke, but she knew all too well how important it was for a lady to seem demure and likable, especially in this part of the country. Her face fell into an annoyed scowl as the cashier turned and returned to her post.

From within the dressing room, Pacifica heard another tinny clang of metal as another hanger was placed on a peg.

“Ready?” she heard Mabel call out from within the dressing room.

“As I can be!” Pacifica answered, both eager and terrified to see what new monstrosity Mabel had chosen to wear.

Mabel stepped out of the dressing room, this time moving much more slowly and less flamboyantly. She held her hair atop her head in a precarious pile to allow Pacifica a complete view. Pacifica’s jaw was once again tempted to drop, though not for the same reason as before.

The dress Mabel now wore was made of a thin, elastic black fabric studded with sparkles. It was supported over the shoulders by thin straps, and had a plunging neckline that revealed more of Mabel’s torso than Pacifica had seen before, even in a swimsuit. She slowly turned around, careful to keep her balance since the dress pinched in around her legs—it hugged her waist and hips with a tightness that accentuated her figure, normally buried in layers of sweater. The curves she did have were amplified and bolstered by the shimmer of the fabric. The back of the dress was the most surprising—there wasn’t one. Instead, it was held together by an interconnected web of bows and laces. Mabel’s skin was smooth, though there were two small freckles near the small of her back.

“Is this better?” Mabel asked, her voice cracking nervously. Clearly, she was uncomfortable in such a dress. Pacifica looked her up and down slowly, swallowing before responding.

“It’s… certainly less loud,” Pacifica answered. “Though, maybe it’s a little too…” She trailed off, searching for the word.

“Sexy?” volunteered Mabel with a smirk.

“Sexy,” confirmed Pacifica, though it had been that word that she was specifically trying to avoid.

“I though little black dresses were a popular thing,” Mabel muttered. “If it’s a formal dinner, an evening dress like this seemed right.”

“For an adult at a public event, maybe,” Pacifica replied. “But not for a teenager at a private dinner with much more conservative adults. You do look very pretty, though,” Pacifica quickly added.

“Thanks,” Mabel responded, waddling over to the three-faceted mirror to hide her blush. As she stepped into center and let her hair tumble down her back, she turned and admired herself. “Huh,” she murmured in a combination of astonishment and bewilderment. “I actually look like a woman.” She gently ran her hands up her hips and waist, though she stopped before she reached her chest. She removed her hands hesitantly—when she looked at herself in the mirror, she looked at her own skin more than the dress.

“Fashion can change a lot,” smiled Pacifica, walking up to stand next to Mabel. Mabel was taller and slimmer than she was, but even Pacifica wouldn’t deny that she was attractive. “But if I’m being honest, as good as you look, you don’t seem very comfortable in that dress. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing the Mabel I know would wear, and the most important thing at dinners like this is to be comfortable.”

“Yeah,” Mabel responded, shaking her head. “I mean, I’m easily the hottest person in this mirror right now, but I haven’t worn something like this before. I want a little practice first.” Pacifica punched her lightly in the arm.

“For big fashion moves like this,” Pacifica replied, “it’s best to have a little practice. You’ve just got to make sure you only pull the big guns like this out for the right people.”

“And you don’t think Sam’s parents are the right people?” asked Mabel, turning and walking back towards the dressing rooms. Pacifica noticed a little more swing in her hips then there normally was, the vision of herself in the black dress already inspiring her with new confidence.

“No,” laughed Pacifica. “They wouldn’t say anything to your face, of course, but I imagine that the Southeasts would have a field day gossiping about you afterwards.”

“Would Sam like it, though?” Mabel followed up, before pausing. She quickly turned and hurried into the dressing room, closing the door behind her.

Pacifica sighed. Every time she or Mabel brought Sam up in any context slightly other than platonic, Mabel immediately ran from the conversation. She understood the nervousness, but if Mabel wanted this trip to be enjoyable, she was going to need to face her worries sooner rather than later. Pacifica sat down in her chair next to the dressing room and clasped her hands together—with the boys gone exploring, she had the opportunity to speak to Mabel uninterrupted. She would need to choose her words carefully.

“Do you care if Sam likes it?” she finally asked, hesitatingly. The rustle of fabric that was coming from inside the dressing room briefly ceased as Mabel puzzled over the question.

“No, of course not,” Mabel finally answered, with a scoff and a crack in her voice. “Why would I care what Sam thinks? I’m Mabel. I do my own thing, and if any boys don’t like it, then they can mind their own business.”

“Because I think that maybe you like him a little more than you want to admit,” replied Pacifica, raising her voice to indicate a question. “And the Mabel I know would never run from that feeling.”

There was a long pause—even as Mabel changed into her next dress, the sound of the rustling fabric seemed strangely muted.

“I… don’t know if I feel that,” she finally responded.

“Well, it seems to me like the love guru would know her own feelings,” Pacifica hinted with a sly smile. “You helped get me and Dipper together after all, and you were all about boys when we first met. As I seem to recall, you almost attacked Grenda over Marius—and you know attacking Grenda never turns out well.”

“That was different!” Mabel defended, hesitating no longer. “This is… different. Back then, I felt happy. There was nothing more I wanted than to get a boyfriend. But now, I don’t feel happy. I just feel like I’m about to explode.”

“From love or from poop?” Pacifica said, remembering the intestinal panic in the Phoenix airport.

“From moths,” Mabel answered. The gentle sound of fabric sliding over fabric continued as Mabel got into the next dress.

“Not butterflies?” Pacifica asked, surprised. “Usually it’s butterflies.”

“These are too big and furry to be butterflies,” Mabel responded. “They’re big, fat, hairy, anxiety-covered moths!”

“Ugh,” Pacifica grunted at that unfortunate visual. “That doesn’t sound fun.”

“It’s not,” Mabel sighed. “But we’re going to be spending all week together, so I just need to suck it up and deal with it! Maybe I can scream at the sun and the moths will fly out.”

“I don’t think it works quite like that,” laughed Pacifica. She was surprised by how easy this conversation was—for all the times Mabel had ducked it before, putting the thin wall of a dressing room between them was all it took for her to bare her heart on her sleeve.

“I know,” Mabel answered. There was a brief moment of silence before she continued. “I’ve got the next dress on now if you want to look at it.”

“Sure!” chirped Pacifica, making an effort to seem as enthusiastic and accessible as she could. If she was going to be Mabel’s surrogate sister behind a wooden divider, she would need to be able to do it in person as well.

The door clicked open, and Mabel stepped out sheepishly, her face flushed red with blood. She wasn’t as scared of the dress as she was with the black one, or as joyously into it as she had been with the pink one, instead moving with a reserved ease that Pacifica had never seen before. As the blonde scanned Mabel up and down, her mouth crinkled at the corners—maybe there was something here after all.

The skirt of the dress came down to her knees, and was made of a rich green fabric, almost the color of the Oregon forest. The bodice of the dress was made of a similar fabric, supported by thick bands going over her shoulders, though the green was slightly darker in tone. Embroidered in gold thread around the base of the skirt were small songbirds, dancing among shining leaves. Vines seemed to fall down from Mabel’s waist to the hem of the dress, making the entire piece of clothing seem intended to transport the wearer to an enchanted forest.

“Okay,” began Pacifica, pursing her lips. “This is by far the best dress that you’ve tried on so far. The cut is nice—the way it pinches around your waist, the length of the skirt, and the tightness of the top help you cut just as good a figure as you did in the black dress, except with a little more Southern modesty. But I’m not really sure that the green-and-gold combination suits you.”

“Really?” pouted Mabel, looking down. “But the birds are really cute.”

“The birds are really cute,” confirmed Pacifica, glancing Mabel up and down. “But there are too many of them. This is a dress that would have been better in the 1950s, but not now. Not for a modern woman like you.” Pacifica tapped her fingers against her chin thoughtfully before turning around and heading back into the main part of the store—she remembered having spotted something earlier. Mabel, rolling her eyes, followed her.

“I like the green, too,” continued Mabel. “It reminds me of the forest around the Mystery Shack. It’s classy.” As they entered the front of the store, the white-haired cashier perked up and watched them—especially Mabel, wandering around wearing the merchandise as she was.

“It is classy,” answered Pacifica, thumbing through the rows of dresses with an expert hand. “But green isn’t your color. It’s Dipper’s. You, Mabel, are pink and red and white and warmth.” With a grin on her face, Pacifica finally spotted the dress she was searching for and pulled it off of the rack. “You don’t need to try to pretend to be something you’re not.”

“Really?” asked Mabel as she took the dress. “It seems so… boring. There’s nothing dramatic about it.”

“Trust me,” cheered Pacifica, pushing Mabel back towards the dressing room. “If you want to look good, and impress the Southeasts at the same time, this is the way to do it. I promise that we can get a louder dress in the future.”

“Pinky promise?” Mabel asked, turning to face Pacifica before she stepped into the dressing room.

“Pinky promise,” Pacifica replied, wrapping Mabel’s finger around hers before stepping back and letting her change. This time, she didn’t rush to immediately wash her hands. 

Pacifica didn’t bother to sit back down as Mabel quickly slipped from one dress into the other. She simply stood by the three-faceted mirror, waiting for the brunette to emerge.

Hesitantly, the door opened and Mabel stepped out. For the first time, Pacifica glimpsed the inside of the dressing room, where the three previous dresses Mabel had tried on were scattered on the floor. She was unable to prevent a snort of annoyance from escaping her nostrils, but most of her attention was focused squarely on Mabel.

The dress she wore had the same rough shape as the green one, but the color scheme was completely different. The bodice was made of thicker cloth, and supported by thick shoulder straps, though her arms were exposed. The fabric itself was light gray, but was mottled through with webs of darker thread that almost gave it the appearance of granite.

The skirt was made of a lighter fabric, and dyed a deep and rich burgundy, warm and comforting. A trapezoidal panel of white cloth stretched from the front of the waistline down to the hem of the skirt, adding a splash of variety to the otherwise monotone color palette.

“Come on!” encouraged Pacifica, gesturing for Mabel to step up to the mirror. As Mabel moved, a grin was already spreading across her face. Though the dress itself didn’t have much color, the muted hues against the soft brown frame of Mabel’s hair made her seem more adult than she had ever felt before. The gentle pinching of the fabric accentuated the curves of her hips, while the perfectly cut length of the skirt was loose enough to have freedom without the pinching of the black dress.

“I… look… _ravishing,_ ” Mabel announced, spinning around and watching the skirt flare up slightly around her. “It’s so simple, but it’s got my colors and everything. I mean, it’s a little dull, but it all comes together!”

“My eye for fashion never disappoints,” winked Pacifica, gently ribbing Mabel as she did so. “Simple sometimes works best.”

“I don’t understand how you were able to pick this out,” Mabel praised admiringly. “It’s not my taste, but it is my style. If that makes any kind of sense.”

“It’s the best of both worlds,” answered Pacifica, stepping up next to Mabel as she admired herself in the mirrors. “Beauty and maturity.” She was silent for a moment, before continuing. “And,” she added in a whisper, “I know that Sam is really going to like it.” The blush in Mabel’s cheeks seemed, for a moment, almost as dark as her skirt.

“Well, it’s not quite perfect,” Mabel announced, as her eyes lit up with the spark of an idea. Turning, she rushed into the main part of the store, leaving Pacifica to scramble after her.

By the time Pacifica got there, Mabel had already taken a bright pink belt from the accessories section and lashed it around her waist, right at the point where the gray fabric of the bodice met the skirt. The large golden buckle sat in the middle of her body, shimmering where gray, pink, white, and burgundy met.

“Now it’s perfect,” Mabel nodded, turning for Pacifica’s approval. Pacifica cocked her head to the side as she evaluated—a white or black belt may have worked a bit better, but Mabel was already compromising on the dress. There was no harm in adding a splash of shine and color—Pacifica gave a thumbs up, causing Mabel to squeal in delight.

“Happy?” the white-haired cashier asked, peering over her glasses with a smile.

“Very,” Mabel smiled as she skipped back to Pacifica, crossing into the dressing room. “I’ll get changed back, and then we can go catch up with the boys.”

Pacifica nodded in confirmation as Mabel vanished into the back, leaving her alone with the cashier. Unsure of what to do, she started to wander around to the wall of hats, finding herself in the section between the toboggans riddled with pom-poms and the hats that qualified more as sculptures than as clothing.

There were no set plans for the upcoming week, but she was certain that they were all going to wind up on the beach at some point. It wouldn’t hurt to have a hat for that, especially since the straw hat she already had had been too big to pack in her suitcase.

Getting on her tiptoes, Pacifica reached up to find a hat with a pleasing shape. The brim didn’t curve up at the edges, nor was the cap in the center too pointed or flexible—the worst thing a straw hat could do was make someone look like either a grandma or a member of a mariachi band.

This hat, however, was perfectly proportioned. A thick red ribbon ran around the top of it, adding a splash of color to the otherwise muted yellow. A blue flower was tucked into the band—it was obviously plastic, but it still looked good. Pacifica looked up at the hats still hanging on the wall, and then back at the one in her hands. There were some hats with ribbons of muted blue or aquamarine, which was much more of Pacifica’s natural color. However, there was something compelling about the simple nature of the hat she held—perhaps it was time for a change.

Pacifica lifted the hat into the air and settled it gently on top of her head. She turned and looked into the small mirror on top of the jewelry counter. Craning her neck to get a look at every angle, she finally let herself smile in happiness.

“Nice hat, Pacifica,” announced Mabel, emerging from the back of the store carrying the four dresses. Most notably, however, she was no longer wearing her sweater—instead, it was lashed around her waist. Underneath, she wore a pale blue t-shirt with a spiraling pattern of darker music notes. It made her figure look slightly boxier, but the gentle crinkling of the fabric around her waist helped a lot.

“It is a nice hat,” Pacifica proclaimed with a nod. “You’re getting a dress, and I’m getting a hat. Hopefully the boys had similar luck.”

“You know that Dipper’s probably bought some kind of voodoo charm,” laughed Mabel as she paced around the outer edge of the store, hanging the rejected dresses back up. Pacifica noted that she was returning them to the exact spots she had taken them—Mabel really did have a remarkable memory when she wanted to use it.

“Most likely,” Pacifica acknowledged as Mabel finally approached the counter with nothing but the final dress and the pink belt.

“Will this be everything, ladies?” asked the cashier as she pulled out a pricing gun and fumbled to find the bar codes on the items.

“I believe so,” answered Pacifica. As inauthentic as her laughter had been earlier, now, her appreciation was genuine. “Thank you for letting us take so long to figure this out.”

“Any time,” the cashier scoffed. “I’d be glad to help you again if you’re ever back in town. Now, is this going to be all on one ticket?”

“No, separate,” Pacifica announced with a sly smile as Mabel shrank back. “It’s just the hat for me, and the dress and belt for her.” Mabel’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

“I’ve already scanned in the dress, so we’ll start with that,” said the cashier as she reached for the belt. “It’s going to come out to two-hundred and ten dollars and thirty-five cents. Will that be cash or credit?”

“Uhh… cash,” Mabel stammered, pointing at the door. “I just need to go and get my wallet from the car. Pacifica… uhh… be a good friend. A good, very rich friend.”

With that, Mabel quickly turned on her heels and burst out onto the sidewalk, the golden rays of the setting South Carolina sun striking her arms for the first time. Her head flashed back and forth, trying to remember which way Dipper and Sam had gone. After a moment, she sprinted off to the left, only stopping briefly to wave at a horse and carriage as they passed by.

“Is she going to come back?” whispered the cashier, genuinely concerned.

“No,” sighed Pacifica with a smile. “No, she’s not.”

“Should I take the dress back, then?” the cashier asked, a look of disgust on her face as she started to cancel the transaction.

“Just put it all on one ticket,” Pacifica reassured her, reaching back into her small leather purse and pulling out one of her credit cards. “I’ll cover it.”


	6. Estate

“Mabel,” Pacifica whispered into her ear. “Wake up. We’re here.” Bleary eyed, Mabel sat up and stretched out as best she could in the back seat of the Audi, finding that her legs were still cramped by the seats in front.

“Where is here?” she asked, smacking her lips and rubbing her eyes as she looked around the inside of the car. Nothing had changed since they had rolled out of Charleston, heading south, a little over half an hour ago. Dipper had taken the front seat for the longer drive, while Pacifica and Mabel took the back—Pacifica had been kind enough to choose the center seat, since Sam would be more easily able to look over her head in the rearview mirror.

But, once Mabel had settled into the plush leather behind the passenger seat and leaned up against the window, she had almost immediately passed out—all of the excitement of the day combined with a very early morning had completely drained her energy reserves, especially since she hadn’t had a single cup of coffee. Combined with the steady vibrations of the winding road and the smooth ride of Sam’s car; she hadn’t stood a chance.

Mabel smoothed down her hair as she glared at Pacifica. Mabel had no idea what she had looked like as she slept, but based on the amount of static electricity in her sweater, the indentation of the seatbelt in her skin, and the numbness in her cheeks, it couldn’t have been attractive. She briefly glanced at Sam’s eyes in the rearview mirror, but he appeared completely focused on the drive ahead. The only expression on his face was an easy smile—but that was fairly normal.

“Here is Seabrook Island,” answered Sam, looking back at Mabel and catching her off guard. “It’s not much of an island, since it’s only separated from the rest of the continent by a tiny little stream that almost completely drains at low tide, but everyone like to call it an island because it seems more exclusive.”

Perking up, Mabel looked out of the window—it was true that there wasn’t a beach immediately next to them, and rolling blue waves beyond it, but the scenery there was seemed scarcely less beautiful.

The road in front of them was made of asphalt that seemed a richer black than pavement normally did, and the white and yellow lines upon it glowed almost fluorescent in the orange of the setting sun. On either side of the road was a forest of gnarled oak trees, with branches slowly reaching up to the sky like the fingers of a skeleton—despite the curved and spiraling limbs, however, the trees seemed comforting, kindly, and old.

From the branches of these trees hung long, gently swaying beards of Spanish moss, drifting in the salt breeze coming in from the still unseen ocean. Where the land dipped down, it was covered in spiky sedge grass that would have sliced up the ankles of anyone brave enough to walk through it, or dumb enough to fall. Occasionally, where the sounds of the ocean penetrated through the foliage slightly more strongly, there were palmetto trees—unlike the exquisitely manicured ones in Charleston, these were wild and untamed, curved and reaching to the sky as their panels of bark held onto the trunks by a few errant cords of fiber.

The forest here was nowhere near as deep, or as imposing as the one around Gravity Falls, studded with pines and redwoods as it was. But these trees were closer to the ocean, and seemed to hold a steady wisdom that would reveal all things, both known and unknown, if only you could read the rustling of the leaves in the humid air. The knowledge they had lay close to the base of humanity, learned and gleaned from centuries of constant growth, and watching people come and go.

The setting sun cast trails of amber light through the leaves, a scattershot pattern of illumination and shadow on the road and grasses below. The sky above was fading from a brilliant orange to a warm and muted pink, dying out over the ocean to a deep and steady blue.

As Mabel drank in the scenery, Sam turned down a side road and accelerated, knowing the road from years of practice driving upon it. This was a private road, and did not bear the marks of yellow and white paint like the public highways. The roar of the engine was exhilarating, even if the increased speed gave Mabel less time to appreciate the swaying of the moss in the trees.

After a few quick turns, however, Sam gently applied the brake and started to slow down, before turning down another side road. This time, he came to a complete stop, sitting before a large and imposing wrought-iron gate.

The gates had spikes thrusting to the sky, much less friendly than the fingers of the trees around them. Two large brick pillars anchored the gates, and atop the pillars sat two imposing stone figurines of dogs—one clearly a bloodhound, and the other a spaniel with long flowing hair. They were both friendly breeds of dog, but each statue had its teeth bared in a growl.

On the right pillar was a burnished bronze plaque, bordered with a deep brown paint. As Sam slowed down, Mabel took the time to read the plaque— _Southeast Estate._ Below that was a date— _Est. 1838._ Mabel swallowed—this house, and this family, had stood for longer than the town of Gravity Falls had even existed.

On the left pillar, which extended slightly farther forward than the right one, was a black piece of plastic with a red light on it. Sam quickly lowered his window, letting in the resonant sound of thousands of chirping crickets and cicadas. He reached into the center console of the car and pulled out an identification card. Upon holding it to the sensor, there was a high beeping sound as the light briefly flashed green. As Sam rolled his window back up, the gate in front of them began to move, pulled open by motors hidden behind the pillars. The headlines on the Audi flicked on automatically.

Mabel and Dipper both leaned forward in amazement as Sam drove through the gate, which closed behind them. Pacifica, having seen the Estate before, chose to enjoy the expressions on her friends’ faces. However, as they rounded a final corner and approached the massive and imposing building, she couldn’t deny its impressive nature—even if the art direction wasn’t as precise as it was for the Northwest Manor.

The Estate was two stories high, and had a wooden porch that wrapped around the entirety of the building. The windows were bordered by black shutters, which stood out vibrantly against the white exterior paint. In fact, almost the entire building appeared to be painted in the same shell of eggshell white, including the four massive columns that supported the second story roof. Above the front door was a small balcony with a chandelier hanging over it—that was no doubt where Stephen Southeast appeared whenever he needed to address a crowd of people at a party.

The entire Estate looked as though it hadn’t changed in the slightest since it was first built—without the visible electric lighting and line of cars outside, it would have been easy to forget what year it was. In front of the Estate was a large fountain, sculpted to look like horses. Against the majesty of the house, however, even this was not enough to draw Mabel’s attention.

Around the fountain was a circular, looping driveway, with an offshoot leading around to the back of the house. It was this offshoot that Sam drove down, going around to a larger patch of pavement. As they passed by the side of the building, Mabel leaned over Pacifica’s lap to better take in the imposing structure. Her seatbelt choked her briefly as Sam turned into his usual spot, and brought the Audi to a gentle gliding halt. As he turned off the engine, the natural noise around them became apparent—not just the cacophony of insects, but the gentle crash of waves as well.

“Well,” Sam said, turning in his seat and quickly making eye contact with everyone in the car. “This will be the final stop on our tour for the day. Please exit to the right.”

“Many thanks for chauffeuring,” replied Pacifica sarcastically as everyone began the process of getting out of the car. For Pacifica, stuck in the middle seat, it took a little longer. “Though I hope you’re not expecting a tip.”

“Surprisingly, I think I’ll be fine without your money,” Sam answered playfully, walking around to the back of the car and popping the truck. There were no other cars around them, which meant that neither Stephen nor Sophia had returned to the Manor for the evening yet. Sam and Dipper began unloading the suitcases and setting them on the pavement. Pacifica, for her part, struggled to pull Dipper’s luggage from the back seat. After a moment, however, she succeeded, dropping it to the asphalt with a hard thud.

“Sorry,” she grimaced at Dipper as she stepped out and closed the door of the Audi behind her. “Hopefully there wasn’t anything too fragile in there.” The air outside was more humid than it had ever been, but the low angle of the sun and stronger breeze coming in off of the ocean had caused the temperature to fall dramatically.

“Nothing but my journal,” Dipper answered. “I left all of the delicate equipment back at the Shack. Anything that we need should be on the _Stan o’ War II,_ when it comes by.”

“Your uncles are coming?” asked Sam as he extended the handles of Pacifica and Mabel’s suitcases. “I didn’t know that.”

“They won’t be staying with us,” answered Pacifica, quickly. “They’ll be staying on their boat. They were just up the coast, and we thought it’d be fun if they dropped by so we could all hang out. Apparently Ford is cooking up something pretty fun.”

“More time with Dr. Ford?” Sam smiled. “No problem. My family has a dock down by the water, so they can anchor right here with no problem.”

“Just remember that he’s _my_ uncle,” chided Dipper lightly, before turning to face behind the Estate. “How close are we to the ocean here, anyway?”

“Very close,” answered Mabel who had been standing at the edge of the pavement and staring off into the distance. “Very close.” She pointed out into the Southeast’s backyard.

If the house next to them was impressive, the backyard was astonishing. There was the same magical blend of oaks and palmettos that were found in the wild forests, but these were spaced apart to provide for easy walking on the soft, lusciously green grass. Off to the left, a wooden structure vanished off into the deeper woods, a recreational walkway over the tide marshes. Amongst the trees, the steady flicker of fireflies was just beginning.

The beach was only about hundred and fifty feet away, the rest of the backyard protected from the encroaching tide by a series of artificial dunes. The mounds of sand prevented the twins from getting a good first view, but the sparkle of the declining sun and advancing moon on the water was obvious.

“Wow,” mumbled Dipper to himself as Pacifica walked up behind him, and wrapped her hand in his. “You know,” he continued, “when you take a look at this, it kind of makes Northwest Manor less impressive.”

“So you understand why my dad’s insecure, then?” Pacifica snickered. “Trust me, we’re all aware of it. The one downside of living on a mountain is that you don’t get beach access.” The Southeasts had substantially more liquid cash than the Northwests, though the Northwests owned factories and hard manufacturing assets in a way the Southeasts didn’t.

“At least you peasants have a sense of humor about it,” chided Sam again. Since neither he nor Pacifica cared about status, the disparity of wealth between them was a constant source of humor.

“Just wait until the stock market crashes again,” laughed Pacifica. “Then we’ll see who’s on top.”

“It’ll be us,” answered Sam, passing Pacifica one of her suitcases, while Mabel came over to retrieve hers. “We may invest, but we’ve got enough stocked away in gold to weather whatever financial storms come our way.”

“Well, I know two people who constantly advocate for buying gold,” replied Dipper, “but they’re both varying degrees of crazy, so… there’s that.”

“Let’s save the investment talk for another time,” Sam said, shaking his head. “Let’s go ahead and head in. I can show you to your rooms before we sit down for dinner.”

“That would be lovely,” replied Pacifica. “It’s been a busy day, and I could use a little time to freshen up.”

With that, Sam took the lead and forged the way back around to the front of the house—he preferred to use one of the two back entrances, but it was only proper that the guests have their first glimpse of the Estate be its most impressive part.

The sidewalk leading up to the front door had recently been pressure-washed, cleaning off the constant growth of moss that took place in such a humid climate. The small shrubberies on either side of the concrete walkway had been impeccably manicured, trimmed into rectangular prisms. Mabel was tempted to stick her hand into one, but knew from experience that the soft outside belied a spiky and harsh interior.

The steps up to the porch were painted a deep, muted royal blue, complimenting the white paint of the rest of the house. The columns towered over the heads of the teenagers as they walked onto the porch. Dipper, craning his neck to take in all of the architecture, noticed the color above them—the ceiling of the porch was painted in the same haint blue shade as the Carolina sky.

“Hey, Sam,” Dipper began, pointing up at the roof. “What’s the deal with the color scheme?”

“Oh, that,” Sam grimaced, looking up only briefly to confirm what Dipper was talking about. “That blue is meant to scare off demons and spirits. Supposedly, the ghosts that haunt the marsh think that it’s the sky, and try to fly up into it. Now, why exactly my family decided to use that color when they don’t even believe in the supernatural is another question entirely.”

“Eh, better safe than sorry,” offered Dipper as Sam fumbled for his keys. The doors of the Estate were intricately carved and painted the same white as the rest of the building, with carefully molded glass panels in the center. The knobs were made of an exceptionally heavy brass.

“If that’s all there was to it…” mumbled Sam, inserting the key and turning it with a click. As he pushed open the door, Dipper, Pacifica, and Mabel all breathed sighs of relief as they felt the cool rush of conditioned air push away the humidity. Their relief was soon overcome by amazement as they beheld the interior of the Estate for the first time—excepting, of course, Pacifica, who spent more time fanning herself and trying to cool down.

“Welcome to the Southeast Estate, friends,” gestured Sam dramatically, overcoming his revulsion at the color of porch ceiling as he prepared to put on a show. “Hopefully everything lives up to your standards.”

“Our standards are garbage,” acknowledged Dipper as his head spun. Mabel was only slightly more reserved, being well aware of the significance of the moment.

The Southeast Estate had a large, open foyer just as the Northwest Manor did. However, instead of one grand staircase in the center, there were two gracefully curving stairways that met up top, their banisters meticulously carved and dusted. Between the two staircases was a hallway, almost like a tunnel, that led to the main dining room. To the immediate right and left, more hallways ran along the front of the house.

Dipper’s neck craned up and around as he took in the rest of the room. Above them hung a single, massive crystal chandelier, with ornamentation made of colorfully blown glass, making the electric lights within seem to flicker like fire. Just above the front door was a small walkway, with a delicately wrought handrail, that allowed access to the small balcony they had spotted earlier.

The floors appeared to all be made out of hardwood, instead of the carpet of the Northwest Manor. The boards were ancient, and would have long since warped and rotted away if they had not been carefully maintained. The walls were not ornamented with hunting trophies or patterned wallpaper, either—instead, they were painted in soft, cool, monotone pastels. There was an abundance of blue and white, with soft yellow accents—and, rarely, an occasional splash of pink. Hanging on the plain walls were mirrors and paintings, all of them in ornately carved frames. None of the art was abstract—it was mostly portraits of stuffy aristocrats long since dead, or idealized landscapes of a time gone by that never really existed at all.

It appeared as though no expense had been spared to keep the Estate looking like it had at the time of its construction. Instead, as technology had progressed, the inside had been gutted and wired up to keep pace with all of the changes that had taken place over time. It even seemed as though the location of wall outlets was meticulously chosen, so they could be hidden behind furniture or curtains.

“So, this is the main entryway,” began Sam, ushering the group forward. “We’ll have time to explore later on, and I can show you all the fun nooks and crannies—but for now, we’ll stick to the main rooms. You can leave your bags here for now.”

Dipper and Mabel looked at Pacifica for confirmation, who nodded before they took their hands off their suitcases. Sam gestured with his head and led them into the narrow hallway that ran between the two staircases. The paint on the walls in the hallway was slightly darker, and the only ornamentation was a long mirror that ran almost the entire length of the corridor. They all walked single file through it, heads silhouetted in the flickering reflection. Pacifica followed the twins, eager to see their reactions.

The hallway emerged into a massive dining room with an arching ceiling that reached up through the second floor to the actual roof of the Estate. The timbers supporting the roof were plainly visible, and looked as though they had been pulled straight out of the ground and added to the house with no processing. No chandeliers or light fixtures hung from the beams, making the space overhead seem truly expansive. With the addition of pews, it could easily have been mistaken for a cathedral. Instead, a long table, easily able to seat fifty people, ran the length of the room.

The long walls on either side of the table were different from the rest of the Estate in that they actually had a pattern on them—it was white wallpaper, with a repeated image of golden flowers and blue fleur-de-lises upon it. The faint yellowing of the white background made Dipper suspect that this paper, too, was completely original to the house.

The wall at the far end of the table, however, overlooking the ocean, was more window than wall. Clear glass panels at the bottom provided a clear line of sight to the water through the trees in the backyard, while a massive rose window inset with stained glass sat overhead.

Though it would only be truly magnificent when the sun was rising and shone through it, the twins were still able to make out the general image contained within the window. The outside was stylized to represent blue and red flowers, though green veins ran throughout the pattern. In the center, however, against a blue background, was a palmetto tree, accompanied by a large magnolia flower and a pair of dogs sitting at attention.

“Sam,” Dipper began curiously. “What’s the deal with the dogs? They’re not what you usually think of for glass windows or statues. It’s usually lions, or dragons, or griffins or something.”

“Good question,” Sam responded, walking down to the end of the main dining table. Seven places were set, only taking up a small portion of the full room—evidently, this was where dinner would be tonight. “The Southeasts don’t have an official seal or mascot, or anything. Nothing to embroider on our jackets, so to speak. But we do have our hobbies—one of which is dog breeding. We’ve been doing that since the Estate was founded, and it’s proven… _useful_ over the years,” he grimaced.

“Eww,” responded Mabel instinctively, before clasping her hands over her mouth in a panic. “Sorry!” she quickly announced. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No,” began Sam, raising a hand casually. “Tell me what you think. I want to hear it.” He had a smile on his face, and his tone was friendly, but the words could be taken aggressively.

“Well…” Mabel started, who looked over to Pacifica for reassurance. The blonde nodded her confirmation—Sam wasn’t the type to be offended over something like this. “I used to really like pugs—with their cute, pinchable faces.” Mabel couldn’t stop herself from raising her fingers and playfully pinching at the air, before a serious look came over her. “But then I learned that they can’t breathe well, and all these dog breeders have basically created monsters.” Her face fell—ashamed that she had been unable to keep her impulsive reaction in, but more disappointed that Sam partook in such a hobby. “Anyway, that’s why I said ‘eww.’”

“I completely agree,” answered Sam, nodding. Mabel’s head shot up in a flash. “That’s why we don’t breed pugs, or any breed that’s just for… human enjoyment, I guess, would be a way to put it. No dogs with weird faces or bones, or anything like that.”

“Then what do you do?” asked Mabel, eagerly. Pigs were her favorite animal, of course—followed by turtles, then horses, then chinchillas, then capybaras, then cats, then goats, and then dogs. Still, she possessed an immense amount of love for them.

“Working dogs,” Sam answered, rejoining the group at the other end of the table. “Bloodhounds, collies, schnauzers, shepherds, some terriers.”

“Where do you keep them?!!” Mabel immediately asked. The idea of throwing herself into a pen full of puppies was too much for her to resist.

“Not here,” Sam laughed. “Well, not in this building. It’s called the Southeast _Estate_ for a reason—it’s big. We keep the dogs on another part of the property. If we have time, we can go there later this week.”

“Oh, okay,” Mabel replied, her smile shrinking ever so slightly, though her brace-less teeth were still plainly visible. “I guess that works. I’m just surprised you don’t have your favorite dog here with you.”

“Dad doesn’t like keeping dogs at the house,” Sam shrugged as he walked over to one of the doors leading out of the dining room. “Though, whenever we travel on business, we do take one with us, everywhere. Dad says that it makes us seem more trustworthy, and that we get better deals because of it.”

“Are you not actually trustworthy?” Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow.

“ _I_ am,” Sam answered with mock indignity. “But having a little extra sympathy never hurts. Dad takes a Portuguese water dog named Silas, after his dad. My personal favorite is a little American shepherd named Cornbread.”

“I… I’m not sure what it means that your dad named a dog after your grandpa,” Pacifica stammered, blinking in confusion. She had known about Silas, but not where his name came from. “I think there may be some trauma there that he needs to work through.”

“Eh, you’re probably right,” shrugged Sam, “but he’d never go to therapy.”

“More importantly,” Mabel shouted enthusiastically, “you have a dog named _Cornbread?!”_

“Yeah,” Sam smiled back. “When she was a puppy, I looked at her and immediately thought of cornbread. Maybe I was just hungry.”

“That’s one of the best names I’ve ever heard,” Mabel whispered in astonishment. “I have to see this dog.”

“You will, I promise!” said Sam, walking over to the door on the left side of the dining room. “But later. Right now, we need to finish the tour.” The door looked just like all of the other doors in the Estate, but Sam bumped it open with his hips, revealing that the knob was just for decoration—it was a swinging door like you’d find in a restaurant.

Behind the door was the kitchen of the Estate, with stainless steel tables and oven hoods everywhere. In the far corner of the room was a door leading to the outside. It was smaller than the kitchen in the Manor, but it still had everything a kitchen could need. Two chefs were currently hard at work preparing the night’s dinner, which was more than the Northwests had after they had to rent part of the Manor back from McGucket.

“Anyway, this is the kitchen,” said Sam, gesturing to the room. As the twins and Pacifica peeked their heads inside, they inhaled deeply—the rich and savory scent of sizzling sausage, and alcohol reducing down into a thick and syrupy sauce tinted with rosemary was delicious.

“Hey Sam!” the two chefs said in unison as they realized that they had guests. Pacifica’s face quickly flashed between a smile and a frown. She was pleased to see that Sam had become friends with the chefs just as she had back at the Manor—but that only reminded her of how unpleasant her parents, and the other Southeasts, were to their workers.

“Hey guys,” Sam smiled back. “I’m just showing my friends around.”

“It smells delicious in here!” Mabel chimed in, earning smiles from the chefs.

“Good,” answered the shorter of the chefs, who was wearing a comically small hair net around a mustache. “That means we’re doing our jobs right!”

“And, just so you know,” began the taller, significantly less hairy, chef, “we’ve got a couple trays of snacks prepped and in the fridge for you, just in case you need them. There’s spinach-artichoke dip, some sausage balls, and a new kind of mousse that’s supposed to taste like s’mores. We thought we’d get creative.”

“We’ll take care of it,” winked Sam turning to leave the kitchen. “Thanks!” he called out as the door swung closed. The group crossed to the identical door on the other side of the dining room. This one had a knob that actually worked, and the weight of the door offered significant resistance as Sam pushed into it.

“And this is the living room,” announced Sam with a sigh. “Or at least, it’s what we call a living room.”

Unlike the other rooms in the Estate, the floor in the living room was covered by a rough rug with a purple and beige pattern on it. Mabel, who enjoyed going barefoot, could already tell that it would be painful to walk on.

All of the furniture was made from a dark, heavy wood, with hand-crafted handles and joints. The couch, upholstered in white, looked like it hadn’t been sat on in weeks, as all of the small fibers were combed in the same direction. Like the other rooms in the house, all of the furniture, minus the electric lamps, looked a century old—which made the flat screen television resting on a stand in the corner all the more jarring. The black screen was covered in a thin layer of dust.

Pacifica glanced over at Dipper and Mabel’s faces, and saw them at a loss for words. As well-off and as likable as Sam was, there was something about this immaculate living room, untouched by the warmth and chaos of family, that was so deeply sad they had no idea what to say. Anything that they could say would seem hollow, and there was no guarantee for them that Sam would even understand it. Sam exhaled.

“Did you just do a magazine photoshoot or something?” asked Pacifica, stepping into the room and spinning so that her hair flared up around her, drawing the focus of attention away from the room and towards herself. “Because this place is really clean.”

“The photoshoot is scheduled for August this year,” answered Sam, shaking his head and moving forward, not looking at the twins behind him. Dipper and Mabel exchanged a look, nodded, and then followed him. “So no. But, enough of that room. Let’s go ahead and get up to the bedrooms. Based on the way things were in the kitchen, I think that dinner’s probably going to be ready soon.”

Sam forged ahead, walking into the living room and turning right, only to enter a very similar room. However, this one had no rug or television, and instead held a couple of portraits and a bouquet of artificial flowers. This room was easier for Dipper and Mabel to understand—there was a fancy, untouchable room in every house.

Turning right in that room, Sam led them down one of the hallways running along the front of the house and emerged back at the foot of the double staircases. Without so much as flinching, Sam knelt down and wrapped his hands around the handle of Mabel’s suitcase, and one of Pacifica’s.

“Come on Dipper, be a gentleman,” Sam laughed as he lifted the suitcases into the air with ease. Dipper, heart bolstered with resolve, grabbed his suitcase and Pacifica’s remaining one. He stood up and lifted the luggage as well, though he had to struggle more than Sam as they headed up the staircase.

Pacifica and Mabel shrugged at each other as the boys led the way to the upper floor. Pacifica noticed more red than usual in Mabel’s cheeks.

The upper floor of the Estate was shaped like a horseshoe, with the main hallway bending around the large, tall ceilings of the dining room. All of the doors opened closer to the outside of the house, ensuring that every room had at least one window to let in light and air. Sam paused at the point where the hallways forked, and waited for Pacifica and the twins to join him.

“Down to the right is Simon and my parents’ rooms,” he pointed, making sure that Dipper and Mabel knew the layout. “There’s nothing down there you need to worry about.”

“What about the left?” asked Mabel, raising her hand curiously.

“I was just about to get to that,” Sam smiled. “The left branch is what is known as the ‘guest rooms,’ or, in this case, the ‘party suites.’” Turning, Sam started to roll the suitcases behind him. Mabel immediately followed him, while Pacifica took one of the suitcases from Dipper to make rolling them easier.

“This is my room,” Sam announced, briefly knocking on the first door that they came to. “If you need anything, this is where you find me. Don’t go to my parents, because they’ll just come get me. And Simon would be less than useless.” He turned right and continued down the hallway, finally coming to a stop in between two similar looking doors.

“And here is where we need to solve a problem,” he continued, turning around and leaning on Pacifica’s suitcase nonchalantly. “Pacifica, as I’m sure you know, we only have two guest rooms. And there are three of you.”

“Wait, that’s it?” asked Mabel in surprise. “I expected the famous Southeast Estate to be bigger. Not that it isn’t impressive!” she quickly corrected herself, averting her eyes. “It’s just not Northwest Manor big.”

“If it seems small, that’s probably because it is,” chuckled Sam. “If it were built today, it would be massive—bigger than Northwest Manor, for sure.” Pacifica rolled her eyes. “But, because adding onto the house would diminish the historical value of it, we’re stuck with what we’ve got. The real value comes from the location. Plus, not having a giant house with upkeep costs makes everything else more profitable!”

“Justify your small house all you like,” snickered Pacifica. “That’s not going to make it any bigger.”

“The point is,” continued Sam, shaking his head to clear the impending blush from his cheeks—his blonde hair made any embarrassment stick out like a sore thumb. “There are two rooms, and three of you. Which means two of you are going to have to double up.”

“That’s easy,” began Dipper, grabbing onto Pacifica’s hand. “Paz and I will take one of the rooms, and Mabel can have the other. Easy.”

“Slow down there, cowboy,” said Pacifica, squeezing his hand. “It’s not that simple. If it was, Sam wouldn’t even be asking the question.”

“Nothing’s ever that simple,” Sam laughed. “Unfortunately. But my concern is twofold. The first is that the walls here are old and thin, so noise travels.”

“That has proven to be a problem for them in the past,” Mabel said seriously, rubbing her chin before breaking into laughter at the sight of Dipper and Pacifica, standing embarrassed in the hallway as they held each other. Pacifica’s blush stood out even more than Sam’s, given her paler skin, but she didn’t attempt to hide it.

“The second problem,” Sam choked out between the laughs that he and Mabel were sharing, “is that I know you and Dipper are still trying to keep things slightly more on the downlow since the Christmas party. And, I don’t think my parents would come over here to investigate anything, but if they came over and caught you together… it wouldn’t be pretty.”

“Damn it,” mumbled Pacifica and Dipper in unison.

“That’s an unfortunately good point,” Pacifica said, looking up at her boyfriend. It wasn’t the devastating blow that it would have been last year, because she and Dipper had been able to steal some moments together over the summer, but it was still unfortunate. After sleeping with Dipper—just sleeping—she found it difficult to go to sleep without him in bed beside her as something warm to cling to.

“How about this,” suggested Dipper weakly. “You and Mabel will put all of your stuff in one room, and I’ll put all of my stuff in the other one. That way, if someone goes in the rooms while we’re not there, they won’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

“And,” Pacifica continued, picking up on Dipper’s train of thought, “whenever we turn in for the night, I can come over to you.” Upon saying that, she quickly bounced up on her tiptoes and pecked him on the cheek.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Sam, rolling his eyes. “Just remember the thin walls problem.”

“I resent the implication that a Northwest would ever show anything but the utmost propriety and decorum,” announced Pacifica, turning around and walking towards her room with her nose in the air.

“Speaking of propriety and decorum,” replied Sam, “I think that dinner’s probably going to be starting in a little under half an hour. So, go ahead and get cleaned up. It’s a normal dinner, so it’s not terribly fancy, but you know… it is the Southeasts.”

With that, Sam turned and walked back towards his room. Dipper passed Pacifica her other suitcase and lightly kissed her on the cheek before turning around and heading farther down the hallway to his room. Pacifica, bouncing lightly, opened the final door and vanished inside, leaving it open for Mabel to follow.

Mabel, rooted to the floor, swallowed and nervously scrunched up her toes.


	7. Makeup

Dipper stood in front of the mirror in his bathroom. Like the rest of the house, the bathroom furnishings were all old, but ran like new. A claw footed tub, not dissimilar from the one that had been in the Mystery Shack for years, was served by a showerhead that shone as though it had just come out of the box. Bright lights mounted in the wall above the sink made the shadows cast by Dipper’s facial features seem sharper. The frame around the mirror was slightly less ornate than the others in the house, though the porcelain carving of the sink more than made up for it—the bowl of the sink was supported by a sculpture of horses.

Dipper tapped his fingers against the rim of the sink as he looked down at the sculpture. The Southeasts apparently had a thing for dogs, but sculptures of horses were still all around them, such as the sink and the fountain in the center of the driveway out front. Perhaps horses were just more common in art than dogs were.

Turning the four-pronged knob on the sink, Dipper sent a splash of cold water across the teeth of his plastic comb. He reached up and started to tame his hair as best he could, while still leaving it disheveled enough to look good—whenever it was plastered flat with water and gel, he didn’t feel like himself. Still, the activities of the day had left him sweaty and tired, and he needed to be cleaned up slightly.

He had changed from his gray t-shirt and jeans into a green polo shirt and a slightly darker pair of jeans. He had tucked the polo into his pants and wrapped a belt around his hips. The belt was made of cloth, but was covered in a plastic sheeting to mimic the appearance of leather. However, the belt had been used so much that it was starting to fray and peel. His tennis shoes remained the same—a pair of dress shoes had been the one thing he forgot. For the actual Fourth of July Party, he could borrow some from Sam.

Satisfied with his appearance, Dipper turned and entered the guest bedroom. A queen-sized, four-poster bed with its curtains bound sat against the leftmost wall, with closet doors on either side of it. Dipper had checked the closets for trap doors, secret panels, and peepholes, but had left them unused—instead, his suitcase sat on top of a heavy dresser with its top thrown open. They were only going to be there for a week, after all—there was no point in unpacking.

The only art in the room was, thankfully, a pair of landscape paintings. Dipper was tempted to touch them, but thought better of it when he saw the date scrawled in the corner by the artists. One of the paintings depicted gentle, rolling mountains shrouded in fog, and it appeared to date from the 1930s. The other, which was from the 1870s, showed a much more geographically appropriate salt marsh.

A window overlooking the part of the driveway where Sam had parked provided a beautiful view of the last rays of the setting sun. Glancing out the window, Dipper saw two cars, one after the other, pull up next to Sam’s. From this distance, he couldn’t tell the models of the cars, but one was clearly silver, and the other was almost pure black. He leaned forward slightly, trying to get a glimpse of the other Southeasts as they emerged from their vehicles, but was drawn back by a light knock at his door.

As Dipper turned to open the door, it creaked open anyway—whoever it was wasn’t concerned about what they might see. Pacifica smiled eagerly as she walked in, shutting the door behind her with a gentle click and leaning against it.

“So,” she began, stepping gingerly forward, her heels making a rhythmic clicking sound as she advanced. “What do you think of the Southeast Estate so far?”

Before Dipper had the brainpower to answer, he had to process Pacifica’s wardrobe change. It wasn’t overly fancy—nothing like the gemstone studded dress of the Christmas party—but it was still impressive.

Her hair, previously in a braid, had been let loose, combed, and now floated free against her back. Dipper could smell the gentle scent of her lavender shampoo in the air. Instead of khakis and an aquamarine blouse, she now wore a navy blue dress studded with small white polka dots. It was cinched in around her waist by two scraps of white cloth, tied in a perfect bow. The neckline of the dress was high and tight, and the skirt drifted lightly around her knees. Her arms were covered by a bright red jacket, which only came down to her waist and had no hope of buttoning in the front. Completing the look were the golden bangles around her wrists, and the thin golden chain around her neck.

Her face had been made up as well, with a gentle blush in her cheeks and a thin dusting of purple eye shadow, trailing off into wings. Her lips, normally a soft pink, were now a slightly richer shade of strawberry.

“I don’t understand this,” Dipper smiled, stepping up to her and wrapping her in a hug. “You spend twenty minutes in a bathroom, and you look like you just stepped off a runway.”

“Runway fashion is impractical,” grinned Pacifica, turning her face as she returned the hug—as much as she wanted to bury herself in Dipper’s chest, there was no point in smudging her makeup. “You don’t look half bad either.”

“I look like garbage,” Dipper shrugged. “Compared to you, at least. All I did was put on a polo shirt.”

“You don’t look like garbage,” Pacifica suggested slyly, gently lowering her hands down Dipper’s back to his waistband. He stood up straighter, surprised by Pacifica’s forwardness as her slim fingers slipped in between his shirt and his pants, reaching further down. “But you still need some work,” she continued with a grin.

With a single fluid motion, she grabbed onto the thin pinching of the fabric of Dipper’s shirt and yanked up, pulling it out of his pants so that it hung loosely over his hips, obscuring his belt. Dipper yelped in surprise as Pacifica took a step back to observe her handiwork.

“What was that for?” Dipper asked indignantly. He didn’t mind Pacifica’s teasing, but he would have appreciated a little warning.

“No one wears a polo shirt tucked in,” Pacifica responded, gently reaching up to fluff Dipper’s hair back into its usual state of disrepair. “No one except for middle-class teenagers who want to feel fancier than they are.”

“You just described me perfectly, though,” Dipper pouted, crossing his arms.

“Oh, come on,” replied Pacifica. “I told you on that first flight that fancy was a state of mind. And, so long as you have me, I’ll be your inside access to the world of what to do and what not to do. And you need to leave that shirt untucked.”

“Fine,” Dipper answered, turning and sitting down on the bed, feeling the firm resistance of the mattress beneath him, no doubt stuffed with feathers. Pacifica, smiling proudly, sat next to him and gently reached out for his hand, which he gave her happily. He wrapped his other arm around her waist and lightly kissed her on the forehead as she rested her head on his shoulder.

As they sat in silence, they felt reverberations throughout the house as the front door was opened and closed, and then the creaking of the woodwork as the other Southeasts entered the Estate. The bones of the house had sat for so long that every footfall on the staircases could be tracked and traced—however, the quick pitter-patter of Simon’s feet carried him directly to his room, and the more measured pace of Stephen and Sophia showed no interest in the guest rooms.

“Hey, Dipper,” Pacifica mumbled, picking at her nails in uncertainty. She didn’t want to intrude on the special bond that Dipper and Mabel shared, nor did she want to reveal any information to Dipper that Mabel wasn’t ready for him to know yet. But after Mabel’s breakdown in the airport, Pacifica felt that she had to say something. “Have you noticed anything…. _off_ about Mabel recently?”

“Off in what way?” Dipper asked, pulling back slightly to get a better look at her. “She’s seemed like normal Mabel for the entire summer. There was even that incident with the glitter truck.”

“I remember the glitter truck,” Pacifica chuckled. “But no, like on the flights over here. She’s seemed less energetic than normal.”

“I haven’t noticed anything,” shrugged Dipper. “Other than the fact that she spent a long time in the bathroom, and that she dragged you dress shopping in Charleston for some reason. That was a little weird. But she does have a little bit of a fear of heights, and it was her first time in a new city—and, if she had seen that fancy Southern dress in a store window anywhere, I don’t think she would have been able to resist. That probably explains it.”

“Probably,” mumbled Pacifica. “Still, I’m a little bit worried about her. Promise me that you’ll keep an extra-close eye on her this week.”

“She’s my twin sister,” Dipper answered with a smile. “Of course I’ll keep an eye on her. But you can’t slack off entirely—parenting Mabel is a two-person job.”

“I’ll do my best,” Pacifica smirked back as she gently bopped her head against Dipper’s chin. As she did so, the two heard a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Dipper announced as Pacifica straightened up and scooted away from him, just in case it was another member of the Southeast family. However, when Sam’s head poked in through the doorway, she relaxed back into him.

“Sorry if I’m interrupting anything,” Sam chuckled with a grin.

“The walls are thin, Sam,” replied Pacifica, rolling her eyes.

“Just make sure you two remember that,” he fired back, pointing at them each in turn. “I’m just letting you know that dinner’s going to be ready in about fifteen minutes, if you want to start heading down to the dining room.”

“Sounds good,” Dipper answered, standing up and stretching. As he stood on his tip-toes and pulled the muscles in his legs taut, Pacifica could hear his joints crack resolutely. “I think we’re ready.”

“What about Mabel?” asked Sam, pointing down the hall to her door. “I was about to go check on her.”

“She should be about ready,” replied Pacifica, standing up. Even in a small pair of heels, she couldn’t stretch with the same power Dipper could. “I left her in the bathroom. I’ll go check up on her. You two gentlemen can go on downstairs and start wooing the adults.”

“You mean Dipper should start wooing them,” Sam clarified. “I’m their son. I’ve got that trump card.”

“I’ll do my best,” answered Dipper, clenching a fist in resolve as the three teenagers exited the guest room, with Pacifica closing the door behind them. Dipper and Sam turned to the right and headed for the stairs, while Pacifica turned left on the hunt for Mabel.

It only took a few steps to reach the girls’ bedroom door. As her heels clacked against the floorboards and sent reverberating echoes throughout the hallway, Pacifica thought about all of the cards that were currently on the table, and all the pawns in play. They were all about to sit down to dinner with the Southeasts, who were definitely not on board with Dipper and Pacifica’s relationship. Complicating matters was Mabel’s crush on Sam, who wasn’t, as of yet, aware of it. This dinner could easily become a minefield.

“Mabel?” asked Pacifica gently, knocking as she let herself in. It’s wasn’t as though seeing Mabel in any state of undress would have been catastrophic or shocking, but Pacifica wasn’t the kind of person to ever disregard someone’s privacy.

However, Mabel wasn’t immediately in the room. The overhead lights had been turned off, leaving the only source of light a single lamp that sat by the bed. The crinkled plastic sheeting that had held Mabel’s new dress lay haphazardly on the bed, catching the pale light and reflecting shards of it around the room.

The bathroom door was only open a sliver, allowing a narrow beam of the yellow light within to shine into the darkened bedroom. From within came the sounds of a thin stream of running water, and the shattering clatter of plastic on porcelain as something dropped within the sink.

Pacifica, in quick, measured steps, rushed over to the bathroom and eased open the door, knocking again as she did so.

“Mabel?” she whispered again, peeking her head past the doorframe. The cold water in the sink still ran, and one of her mascara brushes had tumbled beneath the stream. “Are you okay?” As Pacifica caught sight of Mabel, sitting on the side of the claw-footed tub in her new dress, with her face buried in her purple-stained hands, body shaking with quick and sharpened sobs, she knew the answer to the question.

“Oh, Mabel,” mumbled Pacifica to herself, heartbroken, as she crossed over to where Mabel sat. She knelt down on the cyan bathmat before her, and gently took her hands in hers. She slowly pulled Mabel’s hands away from her face, causing her to slowly lift her head.

“What did you do, baby?” Pacifica asked, voice sweet like honey and powdered sugar. She felt nothing but empathy, care, and sympathy. Mabel’s face was a nightmare of blush and eye shadow—her cheeks a too-vibrant orange while the deep blue around her eyes made her look as though she had just been punched. Black chunks of mascara hung from her eyelashes, and tears had carved dripping purple channels through the makeup on her cheeks, revealing the pristine skin beneath.

Mabel’s hands were stained in the same garish rainbow—even the patterned silver band she wore around her wrist looked aged and tarnished. The only thing that seemed to have been spared was her necklace—a thin chain of silver, supporting a charm in the shape of a shooting star.

“I… I…” Mabel started haltingly, trying to take deep breaths to calm herself. “I… I just wanted to look pretty like you,” she gasped. “You did your makeup in like five minutes, and then I-I tried to do the same thing, but it didn’t look right, so I kept adding more, and more, and more and more…”

“Shhh,” Pacifica consoled her. “Don’t feel bad. This takes practice. Fancy makeup is hard.”

“I don’t understand it!” Mabel burst out, practically screaming. Pacifica looked around the room, panicked that someone could have heard her. She gently put a finger to her lips, which caused Mabel to quiet down.

“What don’t you understand, sweetheart?” Pacifica asked. As she waited for Mabel to respond, she reached into her red toiletry bag and pulled out a packet of makeup removal wipes. Pulling one out, she sat down on the edge of the tub next to Mabel and slowly started to clean her face.

“I don’t understand why I feel like this!” Mabel answered, her voice seemingly caught between a moan, a sob, and a whisper. “You know I like Sam, right?”

“I had a sneaking suspicion,” Pacifica replied with a smile.

“Yeah, well, I do,” Mabel pouted. “But I’ve liked boys before! Hudson, and Gabe, and Mermando, and those vampires, and Norman before I knew he was made of gnomes.” Mabel reached up with her makeup stained hands to wipe away a fresh tear, but was barely able to move before Pacifica had taken care of it.

“And probably a couple of boys back in Piedmont as well,” Pacifica chimed in.

“More than a couple,” smiled Mabel weakly. “But it never felt like _this._ I was always the one who made the first move. I would talk with anyone! I was Mabel, the fun and vibrant twin! But now, when I stand in front of Sam, or he looks at me, or touches me… I feel like Dipper.”

“Nervous and sweaty?” Pacifica asked. “Close your eyes,” she followed up commandingly, gingerly pinching the towelette as she started to pull chunks of mascara from Mabel’s eyelashes.

“Nervous and sweaty and anxious,” Mabel confirmed. “I don’t know what it is that makes Sam different for me.”

“Sam is… interesting,” Pacifica answered, an uncertain twitch to her smile since she knew Mabel couldn’t see. “After Dipper, he’s one of the genuinely nicest guys I’ve ever met. But when he’s around his family, he acts like his family. Sometimes, it’s hard for even me to tell which is the real Sam.”

“The Sam I know is one who likes Waddles and picking us up at the airport and naming dogs Cornbread,” Mabel sniffled.

“He definitely likes that pig,” replied Pacifica, patting Mabel’s cheek to let her know that she could open her eyes. Grabbing onto her arm, Pacifica gently guided Mabel over to the sink so she could wash her hands free of the stains. “Maybe the reason you feel different is because you like Sam in a different way than you did all those other boys. It’s possible that you thought of them all as summer romances, or as boys to flirt with and then move on from. With Sam, though… maybe you see the possibility of something more.”

Mabel’s hands froze as she washed them, before resuming their rhythmic motion a moment later.

“More like what?” she asked, eyes wary.

“More like what Dipper and I have,” Pacifica answered as she started to pick up the bottles and clasps of makeup that had been scattered across the room. It was expensive makeup, and Mabel had blown through most of it—but, it wasn’t like Pacifica couldn’t find more. “A real relationship. With risks, and honesty, and the terrifying future possibility of more.”

“Terrifying,” Mabel echoed, before lowering her eyes down to her hands and beginning to clean under her nails. “I guess things have changed since that first summer. We’ve grown up.” Her gaze briefly flashed to the mirror, where her new dress accentuated the pinch of her waist and the curve of her hips.

“We have,” Pacifica smiled weakly, packing away most of the makeup while leaving a couple of vials out. “It’s been a wild ride.”

“Yeah, and I still have no idea what to do,” sighed Mabel. “If I like Sam in a… different way than all the other boys, then how do I even approach him? If things have changed, then I need to change too.”

“You really don’t!” Pacifica instantly reassured her as she dried her hands on a white towel. She had cleaned her hands well enough that only a faint purplish stain was left behind—one that would easily come out with bleach. “Just because what you feel has changed doesn’t mean that you have to change. After all, you were able to woo plenty of boys before just by being you.”

“Those boys weren’t Sam, though,” mumbled Mabel. “And we’re here in his house. It’s not just him I have to impress. It’s his mom, and his dad, and even his dumb younger brother.”

“Trust me,” Pacifica laughed, “you don’t need to impress Simon. Just cut open a bag of Skittles, throw them on the floor, and watch him waste an hour picking them all up.” As she talked, she took Mabel by the hand and led her back over to sit on the edge of the tub. Reaching back to the sink, she picked up a small container of blush and started to fluff up the sponge.

“What a waste of Skittles,” Mabel grinned meekly, causing Pacifica to laugh.

“We’ll find something else, then,” Pacifica answered. “Now close your eyes and lean your head back a little bit. We don’t have much time before dinner, but I can preen you a little bit.”

“Just like the monkeys who eat fleas off of each other,” Mabel snickered as she felt the gently touch of the blush against her cheeks.

“I’d like to think that it’s a little more sophisticated than that, but sure,” replied Pacifica, rolling her eyes. Slowly, meticulously, she added blush to Mabel’s cheeks, and the faintest tinge of blue over her eyelids—against her smooth skin and the calm tones of her hair and the dress she wore, it didn’t take much to pop.

“As for his parents, though,” Pacifica continued as she worked, “I hate to say this, but you may be on to something. They probably wouldn’t like the same Mabel that Sam does, and that I do. My honest advice for you would be to just be quiet, and only speak up when you’re either talking about something you know a lot about, or about something you’re good at. Southern socialites don’t think anything bad about a lady who’s quiet, but they will gossip about someone who talks too much.”

“So what?” Mabel asked indignantly, though she immediately reigned in her tone when she realized that the advice Pacifica was giving her was given with goodwill and sincerity. “I should just be a demure little girl in the corner, then?”

“Well…” Pacifica hissed through gritted teeth, realizing that she was trapped. Stephen and Sophia would definitely like her more if she was practically invisible, but that wasn’t who Mabel was—to tell her to act like that would be inauthentic and cruel. “No,” she finally resolved. “No, you shouldn’t be quiet. My advice would be to think about what you’re going to say _very_ hard before you say it.”

“Ugh, thinking,” Mabel grumbled as Pacifica took her by the arm and guided her to the sink, standing in front of the mirror with her eyes still closed. “Why should I have to worry about my thoughts?”

“Because you’re a very smart woman,” Pacifica replied, steadying Mabel by placing her hands on her hips. “And you sell yourself short whenever you choose not to act like the alpha twin you are.” Mabel was unable to stifle a smile at that comment. “Now,” continued Pacifica, reaching back into her bag and retrieving a plastic tube, “open your eyes.”

Mabel’s eyes fluttered open, and she winced at the bright lights shining directly down from the top of the mirror. Slowly, as her pupils contracted, the features of her face came into view, now accentuated by makeup—the rose blush of her cheeks, and the delicate shadows around her eyes. She wore no mascara, but had no need for it. She turned her head slowly, taking in the incredible paint job that Pacifica had been able to do so quickly—her features seemed sharper, and her eyes grew brighter by the moment as the pressure from crying drained away.

“Wow,” murmured Mabel. “You taught me how to sketch, and now you need to teach me how to do makeup properly.” She reached back and gathered up her hair, lifting it into the air before letting it drop against her back, fluttering into place.

“Don’t worry,” grinned Pacifica, placing a hand on Mabel’s shoulder. “We’ll cover that when we get back to Gravity Falls. I’ll do your makeup for this week—but remember that you only need it for formal occasions.” Mabel nodded in acknowledgement. “Still,” Pacifica continued, “your look isn’t done quite yet. You still need lipstick.” With that, she proffered the tube that she had plucked from her bag.

Mabel turned and took it, pulling the cap off with a satisfying pop. The lipstick inside was lightly used, and was a shade of pink only slightly richer than her lips already were. This was one thing that Mabel knew how to do quite well—she gently ran the stick over her bottom lip, before lightly puckering her lips and smacking them loudly.

Her look complete, she turned to face Pacifica. Before the blonde knew what was happening, she had been enveloped in a hug.

“Thank you, Pacifica,” Mabel sniffled. “I’m sorry I wasted all your makeup.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Pacifica reassured her. “After all, what’s the point in being rich if you can’t buy nice things for your friends?”

“Buying nice things for yourself,” smirked Mabel.

“Well, that too,” Pacifica smiled, stepping away from the hug and holding Mabel by the arms. “Now, we’re going to go down there and show those Southeasts exactly what kind of a girl Mabel is.”

“Smart, artistic, pretty,” Mabel affirmed, almost like a mantra.

“And sparkly,” laughed Pacifica. “Don’t forget sparkly.” With that, she turned and opened the bathroom door, allowing Mabel to step out into the bedroom and slip on a pair of flat black shoes.

“Always sparkly,” Mabel repeated. With a deep breath, she walked past Pacifica and out into the hallway. She turned right towards the dining room, with Pacifica hot on her heels.


	8. Supper

“Sorry that we’re late,” announced Pacifica, emerging from the hallway and into the dining room. Around the long table, the four Southeasts and Dipper, who had been sitting there reclined in easy conversation, stood up at their entrance. Stephen sat at the head of the table, and his wife Sophia was immediately to his left. Simon, who had an annoyed expression at being forced to stand, was at his right hand. Dipper sat next to Simon, while Sam had taken a seat next to his mother.

“It’s no problem at all!” boomed Stephen, extending his arms as though to lay claim to everything in the home. His silhouette under the large rose window was reminiscent of a malevolent priest. The white suit he wore, coupled with a shirt patterned in a dark navy plaid, did nothing to detract from the image. His white, bushy mustache caught and reflected the little light in the room. “I understand that you ladies often need a little extra time. Isn’t that right, Sophia?”

“Absolutely, Stephen,” replied Sophia, who reached out to touch his arm. Sophia wore a dress that extended down to the floor, decorated with slim horizontal white and gold stripes. Her blonde hair was perfectly bobbed, artificially held in place by a tidal wave of hairspray. “And it was very gracious of you to hold off on starting dinner until they arrived.”

Pacifica, holding back a grimace with a strength only possible due to years of training, paused at the far end of the table and turned to face Mabel. Mabel’s expression was contorted into a broad smile, though pain at both the stretching of her cheeks and at Stephen’s comment was present in the lines around her eyes.

Pacifica gently pointed to the left side of the table, ushering Mabel towards the side of the table that Dipper sat on. It was a relatively informal dinner, so there would be no placards with seat assignments, but it was best to eliminate any sources of gossip before they could arrive.

“And thank you for that, Mr. Southwest,” answered Pacifica, bouncing lightly on her heels as she slid into place next to Sam. Mabel, who moved with a rigidness as though her legs were frozen through, approached her brother much more stiffly.

Her new dress swung lightly around her knees as she approached. Mabel was too petrified to process the reaction that her new wardrobe was getting, but Pacifica was careful to watch the eyes around the table. Dipper looked Mabel up and down in surprise, then in pride. Sam’s gaze was one of surprise and confusion, altering back and forth so quickly as to be occasionally indistinguishable.

“Chefs!” Stephen shouted, directing his voice towards the swinging door that Sam had peeked through earlier. “Our final guests have arrived!”

Immediately, the door was held open by the taller chef, who held it in place while the shorter one pushed a metallic cart through. The wheels of the cart, laden with food, squeaked against the shiny hardwood floors.

The first thing to be set down was a bowl of cold salad—various shades of green lettuce paired with the rich brown of fermented olives, the bright red pop of cherry tomatoes, the oily sheen of a vinaigrette, and the crumbly white powder of feta. Pacifica couldn’t help but lick her lips—this was exactly the right amount of fancy for her taste—expensive enough to taste good, but not so much that it was inaccessible to the Pines, or required an evening dress to consume.

She looked up at the twins, and saw that they both were inspecting the salad cautiously, Dipper a little more eagerly than Mabel. They had eaten such salads of course, before, but having such a familiar dish in a strange land was confusing. Simultaneously, they both reached for their forks—Pacifica cleared her throat, causing them to withdraw with sheepish embarrassment.

The second dish was the main course—a large, steaming bowl of coarse grits, laden with freshly boiled shrimp and a heaping mound of Andouille sausage. The grits, already yellow, were stained to a richer hue by the large amount of cheese that had been stretched, stirred, and thoroughly combined into the grains. Scattered across the top of the grits were pools of golden liquid where thick pats of butter had just melted, sinking into the dish.

Dipper and Mabel inspected this dish even more closely—even in San Francisco, so close to the sea, they had never encountered this particular combination of seafood before. As they bent slightly before the bowls and inhaled, however, both Pacifica and Sam saw the smiles spreading wide across their faces—the rich fervor of the spices, vibrant tang of the shrimp, and quiet sweetness of the grits were delicious.

The twins looked expectantly at Pacifica, then to Sam, and finally to Sophia and Stephen.

“Now that the food has been served, let us say grace,” began Stephen, extending his hands around the table. Dipper and Mabel were caught off guard by this, but weren’t confused—they knew what to do. Simon sullenly gripped Dipper and his father’s hands, while Pacifica reached across the table to hold hands with Mabel. Sam and Pacifica then locked hands while Dipper and Mabel did the same, forming an unbroken circle. All the teenagers closed their eyes and bowed their heads as they waited for Stephen to start, though Dipper and Pacifica were unable to resist glancing up at one another.

“Lord,” he began. “We thank you for this food, we thank you for security and tranquility, and we thank you for the opportunity to succeed and create our own prosperity.” Pacifica could feel Sam squeeze her hand in discomfort—she squeezed back reassuringly. “And, we ask that such blessings may be shared amongst all who suffer today. Amen.”

A gentle chorus of ‘amens’ murmured around the table at the clearly rehearsed prayer. Everyone opened their eyes slowly, looking around uncertainly as they waited for the final cue.

“Dig in,” Stephen announced, before turning to Mabel. “But first, little lady, I don’t believe that we’ve met before. What’s your name?” Sam smirked as he picked up his fork. Pacifica and Dipper, however, kept steadier emotions on their faces as they grabbed their utensils. The tines of the fork made a sharp crunch as they penetrated the lettuce. Pacifica, stabbing a tomato, watched the thin red liquid spill out into her salad.

“My name is Mabel,” she said, trying her hardest to reach her normal levels of enthusiasm. “Thank you for allowing us to stay at the Estate this week.”

“With pleasure,” grinned Stephen as he immediately pushed aside his salad and dug directly into the shrimp and grits. “Now, you two look alike,” he continued, waving his spoon back and forth between Dipper and Mabel. “Are you related or something?”

“Twins, actually,” they both said in perfect unison, without breaking stride. Pacifica and Sam looked at each other, impressed and amused.

“That must be fun,” mumbled Stephen, clearly sarcastic, before raising his voice again and continuing. “Before you came downstairs, Dipper here was just telling me all about that blood-test-cloning project that he and his uncle are working on. Are you involved in that?”

“I’m not,” answered Mabel after a brief pause, having taken the time while Stephen was speaking to chew and then demurely swallow a small bite of salad. Pacifica could see relief on Dipper’s face at the response—the blood-cloning thing had been an utter fabrication to help solve the shapeshifter problem, and he was glad that Mabel would not be exposing his ruse. “Dipper is analytical. I’m more on the artistic side.”

“Oh,” Stephen responded, disheartened. He didn’t see much value in the arts. “What kind of art are you looking to pursue? Abstract, landscape, portrait?”

“My forte is currently in sculpture,” Mabel responded, elegantly nonplussed. “Though, I am looking to expand my portfolio. Pacifica has been helping me hone my sketching skills.”

“I have,” smiled Pacifica as she finished her salad and gently reached for the next utensil, cleanly accepting the conversational pass from Mabel as she did so. “I have to say, it’s been remarkable to see how much she’s improved with just a few months of practice.”

“A quick learner,” chimed in Sophia happily. Pacifica turned to look at her, but her eyes instead focused in on Simon, who sat between Dipper and Stephen—the boy was clearly distraught and sullen, having barely touched his food. She wanted to ask what was going on, but knew better than to speak up.

“I saw some of her work when we were in Gravity Falls last Christmas,” Sam continued. “She really is quite remarkable. I haven’t had a chance to see her sculpture yet, but I can imagine that it’s impressive.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Mabel responded, blushing as she did so. She quickly ate another forkful of salad.

“Where would you say you get your… oh, inspiration from?” asked Sophia, leaning lazily over her shrimp and grits. The question she asked was dull and uninspired, from Mabel’s perspective—for an artist, the idea of any one thing being a source of endless inspiration was naïve.

“A lot of things,” answered Mabel after a thoughtful pause. Then, as she dragged her bowl of shrimp and grits in front of her, eager to try the novel dish, her eyes lit up with an answer. “Though, the most constant source of inspiration I have is my pet pig, Waddles.”

Pacifica’s eyes quickly flashed from her spoon to Stephen, then to Mabel, and back again. She bit down, feeling the salty pop of the seasoned shrimp against her teeth. Mentioning Waddles was a risky move, but it was quintessentially Mabel, and Pacifica wasn’t entirely sure how it would play.

“You have a pet pig, then,” Stephen continued, looking down at his bowl of food. Already, he had almost eaten his way through half of it. “Do you just have it for the novelty of it, or do you plan on doing something productive with it?” Pacifica winced—it was not playing well. She looked at Mabel pleadingly, begging her with her eyes to choose her words carefully.

“I’m sorry,” Mabel finally replied, “but Waddles is a part of the family. He is my friend, and we keep him around for companionship and love. I could never do anything… productive with him.” Mabel poked at the sausage in her shrimp and grits sadly.

“And we keep the dogs around for the same reason,” snorted Stephen. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t sell them when they’re ready.”

“But you keep some of the dogs,” Mabel fired back, quickly. Pacifica watched Dipper’s eyes, now flashing back and forth between Stephen and Mabel in a panic at the escalating conflict. He quickly took another bite of the shrimp and grits, savoring as best he could the gentle yielding of the yellow grains. Simon continued to sit there, as though wishing himself invisible. “There are some that are for business, and some that are for family. Stephen told me about Silas.”

“Silas is getting old,” answered Stephen, without a hitch of sadness or sympathy in his voice. “It may be time for me to get a new one.” Mabel, in the face of such callousness, couldn’t think of anything to say. She could deal with rudeness—she had interacted with Pacifica plenty of times before they had established a friendship—but such a casual and easy disregard for animals was a bridge too far.

“Sam,” Mabel stammered, turning to blonde boy, who slowly placed another spoonful of shrimp and grits into his mouth. “You saw Waddles when you visited us in Gravity Falls. Surely you know how cute and cool and awesome he is?” Sam took several seconds to chew thoughtfully before answering.

“Waddles is a cute pig,” he finally replied. “But I must admit that I can see the market value in a hog his size.” Stephen nodded in approval.

It took every muscle in Mabel’s body to keep her mouth closed, and her body from shaking as she closed her eyes and set her spoon back down in the bowl. Pacifica looked at Sam in disbelief, but he seemed as focused as ever on his shrimp and grits—he loved Waddles, so why he wouldn’t defend Mabel’s affection for her pig was beyond comprehension.

Pacifica then looked up to see Dipper gazing at Mabel in concern. Turning, his eyes briefly met Pacifica’s. Ever so slightly, they nodded, agreeing on a course of action to redirect the conversation as quickly as possible. This was a big moment for them all, and they couldn’t afford for it to go south, even though Stephen had been unspeakably rude to the justifiably upset Mabel.

“Simon!” Dipper proclaimed loudly, turning to the small boy beside him, who hadn’t spoken a word throughout the entire meal. “It’s been months since I’ve seen you. What’s been going on?”

Simon didn’t respond, and continued to poke his food with his spoon, pushing the chunks of shrimp and sausage around the quickly solidifying grits.

“Simon, it’s rude to not answer a question,” Sophia warned. Simon’s eyes snapped up, and glared at her, which she returned in kind. Simon yielded.

“Nothing,” he murmured, barely audible.

“That’s not true at all,” announced Stephen harshly, borrowing the strength of Sophia’s glare to administer one of his own. Pacifica caught a glimpse of the stringy grits still dripping from his white mustache, and couldn’t help but shiver in revulsion. “And it’s actually good that you bring this up, Dipper, because we have a bit of an announcement to make regarding the plans for this week,” he continued. Sam, Pacifica, and Dipper immediately perked up, while Mabel remained slouched.

“What is it, dad?” asked Sam, his voice suppliant and earnest. Pacifica would have rolled her eyes, if she hadn’t recognized the same tone in her own voice so many times before. Still, Sam’s ability to lean into playing a role for his parents was worrisome, especially since he had just hurt Mabel by doing so. “I was planning to hang out with Pacifica and the Pines, but if you need me to help you with anything, I’d be glad to.”

“No, no, Sam,” replied Stephen, raising his hand. “It’s nothing like that. You’ve worked hard enough this summer that you deserve a break, especially with college starting so soon. No,” he continued, finally using a napkin to wipe his mustache and causing Pacifica to exhale in relief, “I’m afraid that this involves your younger brother.”

“Simon,” murmured Pacifica in mock exasperation, deliberately loud enough for the Southeasts to hear. The tone, ultimately, was more caring than it was disparaging. Simon still looked miserable, his blonde head looking down at his lap. His wardrobe—khaki pants and a pale pink shirt—did nothing to make him look happier.

“Yes, Simon,” Sophia began, lifting her glass of wine from the table. When it started shaking in her hand, however, sending splashes of the pale liquid up the side, she set it back down. “As you may have noticed, we were late getting home. That’s because we got a call from the police.”

“The police?!” exclaimed Sam, his voice now lit up in genuine concern. It was one thing for a summer camp counselor or a teacher to call their parents. It was quite another for the police to be involved.

“Yes,” announced Stephen, his voice now projecting confidence and authority, glaring at Simon, who sat silently and sullenly. “Evidently, they caught him with a cigarette at his summer program.”

“A cigarette?” Sam said, leaning back in his chair in disgust. Pacifica’s mouth was open in concern, while Dipper and Mabel looked absentmindedly around the room, unsure of what to do as their friend’s parents excoriated his younger brother. “I can’t believe that. Simon, you’re not like that.”

“Yeah,” replied Pacifica, chiming in. “The Simon I know would never do that.”

“I wouldn’t!” chirped Simon, unable to keep his thoughts to himself any longer. “It wasn’t even lit! I didn’t even put it in my mouth! Some older kids handed me one as a joke and then ran away!”

“Likely story,” scoffed Stephen. “The Southeasts had a long history with tobacco before the government got involved, and it starts early! But I’m not going to let that happen, not with all the chemicals they put in there these days.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Sam, worried that his parents were overreacting.

“We’re going to take a little trip to New York,” Stephen announced, crossing his arms. “Specifically, the New York Military Academy. I’ve already called ahead, and they’ve agreed to let Simon participate in their program for a few days, just so he can get a taste of what’s ahead of him if he keeps acting out.”

“I wasn’t acting out!” shouted Simon, balling up his fists. He clearly wanted to overturn his plate and barge out of the room, but knew that doing so would only make things worse. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong!” He was only nine, and tears welled in his eyes,

“Son, go to your room,” commanded Stephen. When Simon didn’t move, Stephen loudly clicked his tongue, sending a sharp, wet smack reverberating around the room. Sam did his best to hide a wince, while Simon immediately leapt from his chair and sprinted for the exit.

“I’m sorry about that,” Sophia apologized, lightly dabbing at her eyes with her napkin. “We’re just so baffled as to why he would do this.”

“I think military school may be a little harsh,” Mabel offered. Every eye on the table instantly snapped to look at her—she swallowed, steeled her resolve, and continued. “I mean, I think about my life when I was nine, and I wouldn’t have been able to handle a punishment like that.”

“Of course,” Pacifica leaned forward, trying to divert attention towards herself—she had more goodwill with the Southeasts that she could afford to burn. “You are the parents, so you have final authority over what happens with Simon.”

“Naturally,” Stephen replied, gently sliding a finger beneath his belt to readjust his gut. “But I happen to agree with Mabel over there.” Mabel smiled—not only did Stephen agree with her, but he remembered her name. The moment Stephen continued speaking, however, her face fell. “There’s no way a girl would have been able to handle the stress of military school. But men need to be held to a higher standard, and have to be taught discipline!”

Pacifica looked over at Mabel in a panic. The brunette was biting her lower lip, clearly refraining from saying something. Pacifica’s heartbeat calmed slightly when she saw that Dipper’s arm was at an angle—he was holding onto Mabel’s hand beneath the table, providing her a rock of reassurance.

“I expect that Simon will straighten out quickly,” Sam said, sipping from his glass of water before placing it back on the table. A wave of relief swept over the table as the conversation was redirected. “But what does that have to do with us?”

“The New York Military Academy will be shutting down for a brief break next week,” sighed Stephen. “Which means that we have to go up tomorrow morning, and that you teenagers will be at home alone all this week.”

“Will you not be coming back?” Sam asked. Despite him cloaking his voice in concern, Pacifica could easily detect the notes of excitement beneath it. “You could easily come back and then return to New York to retrieve him.”

“That was my original plan,” Stephen said, rolling his eyes. “But your mother thinks that we ought to be closer, just in case something goes wrong. I’m sure that there’s something to do in New York anyway.”

“There always is in the city that never sleeps,” Pacifica chimed in, her voice slightly less masked than Sam’s.

“Yes,” moaned Sophia. “But I don’t know that I’ll be able to enjoy it if I know that you four are here all by yourselves! What if something goes wrong?”

“Mom,” Sam began, gently reaching out to touch her upper arm. “I’m eighteen, Pacifica’s already seventeen, and the twins over there are about to be. Plus, we have chefs and butlers. We are more that capable of holding down the fort for a week.”

“But can you avoid getting into any mischief directly?” asked Stephen, eyeing the entire table. Mabel averted her eyes at his glare, and Dipper began to sweat beneath it, while Pacifica and Sam met it with an easy confidence.

“You have my promise as your son, and as a Southeast, that there will be no shenanigans,” Sam proclaimed. “And I’ll keep an eye on the others.”

“And you have my promise as Northwest,” followed Pacifica, raising her hand as she reaffirmed Sam’s statement. “We will stay safe, and we will be fine.”

“Well,” sighed Sophia, “That is every point on the compass.” She paused for a moment before looking up and over at the Pines. “What about you two?”

“Oh, don’t worry about us, ma’am,” Dipper started. “We’re just guests here, and we’re going to be following your son’s instructions at every turn.”

“Yes!” Mabel echoed. There was nothing more that she needed, or particularly wanted, to add.

“I suppose it’s okay then,” Sophia sighed again. “Stephen?”

“I’m not the one who was worrying!” Stephen laughed boisterously. “I’m a big advocate of letting kids make their own mistakes and then suffer for it.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Sam smirked. “The point is, we’ll be fine. You two go to New York and make sure you get Simon straightened out. Then, if you have time, enjoy yourselves. Just make sure you get back in time for the Fourth of July Party.”

“Don’t worry about that,” answered Stephen, pushing away from the table and standing up. Sophia followed him. “We’ve told the party planning staff exactly what to do—how to set things up, what to have on the menu, and how low to cut the grass. You shouldn’t have to do anything.”

“That’ll give us more time for fun, then,” Sam replied. Stephen smiled in response, while Sophia shook her head.

“Exactly,” Stephen laughed. “Now, because we have to leave early tomorrow, your mother and I are going to retire for the evening to get packed.” Slowly, with a lumbering gait, Stephen led the way to the other end of the dining hall, heading for the double staircases.

The four teenagers’ eyes flashed between each other, trying to process this development.

“And, this goes for all four of you,” Stephen boomed as he lurched away into the shadows. “Behave.” He spoke the final word with such resonant authority that, for a moment, no one dared to defy him. As he vanished down the hallway, however, and the stairs creaked under his weight, the impact began to wear off.

Dipper, Mabel, Pacifica, and Sam looked at each other in stunned silence at what had just happened. What was going to be a delicate dance around Sam’s parents had suddenly become a wide open week, full of promise for mischief and magic. Just as smiles broke out on their faces, however, they jumped in their seats as they heard a door open.

“Sam!” the chef announced in surprise, peeking his head out of the kitchen to check up on the status of the diners. “Where is the rest of your family? We have dessert prepared for you all!”

“They all left,” Sam shrugged in response. “But, we’re ready for dessert. Just bring us their plates too!” The chef, smiling at Sam’s answer, vanished back into the kitchen before reemerging with seven plates balanced on a tray.

Making his way around the table, he set down saucers containing a slice of pecan pie and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The pecan halves that crusted the top of the pie were fresh, while the rich syrup that leaked from within the pie smelled of brown sugar and fire. The ice cream had a ragged, yet smooth consistency, showing that it had been freshly churned.

“Well,” declared Sam, looking from Mabel, to Dipper, to Pacifica and back as he picked up his fork. “That was unexpected, but honestly wasn’t as big of a train wreck as I had prepared for.”


	9. Marsh

“Dipper!” Pacifica whispered playfully, gently poking his head. Lolling back onto the pillow, his hair swept down over his eyes before he woke with a start.

“What is it?!” he asked in a panic, immediately reaching over to the nightstand and fumbling for his journal. Pacifica hurriedly raised a finger to her lips for silence as Dipper’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, scanning the room for any potential threats. Seeing none, his muscles relaxed as he breathed a sigh of relief.

The amber lights on the electric clock next to the bed indicated that it was 1:30 in the morning, though the numbers were partially obscured by the sweetgrass rose that Dipper had given to his girlfriend. From somewhere deep within the bowels of the house, the eternal tick-tock of a grandfather clock could be heard echoing, sending vibrations through the wooden bones of the frame. The curtains on the windows were drawn back, allowing a shaft of moonlight to cast the bedroom in a silvery glow. Also from outside came the gentle buzz of insects, their chirps and whistles mitigated by the glass panels.

Turning, Dipper looked at Pacifica, who was lying next to him in the bed on her stomach, propped up on her elbows. The moonlight glinted off both her eyes and the plastic frames of her glasses, two spots of starlight on her face. Her hair was loosely swept back in a single tie, and a pale green t-shirt covered her torso. The rest of her was obscured by the blankets.

After they had all retired for the evening, Pacifica had silently crept over to Dipper’s room and joined him in bed. They had done their best to stay quiet—other than Dipper’s shirt, all clothes had stayed on. Several times, however, Dipper had to remind both Pacifica and himself of their limitations. Both of their lips had gone numb, however, before Dipper finally drifted off into sleep, with his arm still snugly and protectively wrapped around his girlfriend.

“Pacifica,” Dipper began, in a tone crossed between consternation and confusion. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, you anxious nerd,” Pacifica replied, rolling her eyes. “I just can’t sleep. I thought you might want to go for a walk outside.”

“Oh,” continued Dipper, rubbing his eyes. “I thought we both passed out. Sorry I left you awake.”

“It’s fine,” Pacifica shrugged, fanning herself. “There’s not a lot we can do here without making a lot of noise, so when you got me all riled up, there was no way to release that energy. I thought outside might let us cool down.”

“Ah, well, I’m sorry I got you all riled up, then,” winked Dipper as he swung his legs out of the bed and placed his feet against the worn floorboards. Though he moved slowly, they still creaked under his weight.

“Don’t ever apologize for that,” smirked Pacifica as she too whirred into motion. “Just apologize for not finishing the job.”

"I’m sorry the walls are thin,” Dipper corrected, nodding his head as he reached for his shirt, which Pacifica had somehow managed to throw across the entire room. “Are you sure that walking around outside is the best solution, though? I mean, I have no idea where I’m going out there. Aren’t there alligators?”

“There are alligators,” Pacifica acknowledged, pulling a thin gray cardigan on over her shirt. It wasn’t going to be cold, but it was best to keep as much skin covered as possible from the endless onslaught of mosquitos and other annoying insects. “But, just don’t get in the water and you’ll be fine. The gators here don’t get that big.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Dipper answered, shaking his head. “Hopefully we won’t be going anywhere near the marsh.”

“We’re going _over_ the marsh!” Pacifica laughed. “The best place to wander around here is that wooden walkway that we saw on the way in. There may be alligators beneath us, but I promise that even the most dedicated ones won’t try to jump that high.” She reached into her suitcase and pulled out a pair of loose gray sweatpants—slipping out of the shorts that she had been wearing, she stepped into the sweatpants and cinched them loosely around her hips.

“It’s times like these that I wish Ford would let me use a laser pistol,” sighed Dipper, dressing similarly to Pacifica. He wore a thin gray jacket, unzipped, with the Velcro around the wrists flapping freely in the air. His sweatpants were less fashionable than Pacifica’s—especially since the name of the Mystery Shack was pressed onto the left leg, while Stan’s face was on the right. Stan’s attempt to break into fashion three years ago had failed miserably, and he wound up stuck with a lot of loose inventory that he forced the twins to take. Mabel had repurposed the fabric, but Dipper had no such skills.

“You don’t need a laser pistol,” Pacifica chided, stepping into a pair of sneakers with her bare feet. She shivered at the feel of the shoe against her skin, with no protective sock—it made her feel more exposed, and also more alive. “Just don’t taunt the giant lizards.”

“But taunting giant lizards is my specialty,” smiled Dipper sarcastically, donning his shoes similarly. He knelt down to tighten the laces as Pacifica walked around to his side of the bed. “Do I need to bring a flashlight or anything?”

“I don’t think so,” answered Pacifica, turning to look out of the window. The moon, luminous and white, without a hint of green, cast most of the backyard into an ethereal glow. It was bright enough to pick out individual boards on the marsh walkway, and the only dark places were the shadows cast by the gently swaying trees. The sky was studded with stars, though they grew fewer and fewer as the artificial glow of Charleston intruded upon their domain in the distance.

“Good,” replied Dipper, reaching out to take Pacifica’s hand in his. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” said Pacifica, squeezing his hand. “Just remember that this is a small, old house. We have to be really quiet until we get outside.”

“If this wasn’t a small old house, I guarantee that we wouldn’t be sneaking outside right now,” Dipper smirked. Pacifica blushed, and lightly smacked him on the back of the head as she reached out and wrapped her hand around the ornate brass doorknob.

Slowly turning it, and pulling the door open with as gentle a movement as she could make, Pacifica poked her head out into the hallway to verify that no one was there. To the left, the crack beneath Mabel’s door was dark. She usually didn’t get to sleep until late, but she hadn’t had as much coffee as usual today, so an early crash was possible.

To the right, Sam’s door was similarly closed. However, there was a very faint golden light shining out from beneath it. He was still awake—perhaps scrolling on his phone or listening to music. He hadn’t flown across the country yesterday, so he naturally had more energy than the others. Pacifica turned to Dipper and pointed at Sam’s door before placing her finger against her lips. Dipper nodded in confirmation.

As they stepped out into the hallway, Dipper released Pacifica’s hand so they could each have better balance. Slowly, Pacifica led the way to the twin staircases, doing her best to remember where the creakiest floorboards were and avoid them, and wincing every time she got it wrong. With deliberate movements, they crept down the hallway.

Passing Sam’s room, they hugged the opposite wall in an attempt to minimize any visual component of their passage. Pacifica breathed a sigh of relief as she passed the door—it’s not like Sam would have tattled on them, or even mocked them for sneaking out, but it was a conversation that she would rather avoid. Occasionally, Sam was a little tone deaf about privacy, and could have invited himself along on their walk—that she could not allow.

However, as Dipper followed her across the golden beam of light cast on the floorboards, she froze—there was a voice coming from Sam’s room. It was barely above a whisper, but she could still tell it was there. She turned to look at Dipper, who did not appear to have noticed. Her ears were better than his, after all—both because she was a woman, and because she hadn’t been hit in the head nearly as many times.

Dipper looked at her in confusion as she scuttled over to Sam’s door, sidling up against the wall next to it and holding her ear closely to the frame. Her curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she had to know what was going on. She gestured for Dipper to join her—he quickly stepped across the hallway and pulled up behind her, softly resting a hand on her waist as he joined her in listening. She inhaled sharply at the contact, but soon refocused on the quiet, insistent voices.

“Are they really going to send me to military school?” she barely made out, hearing the high-pitched voice of Simon within the room. His desperate question was punctuated by a quiet sob before the stronger, deeper tones of Sam took over.

“No, no they’re not,” Sam answered, his voice calm and steady. Pacifica blinked as Sam continued speaking. “They’re just trying to scare you for a little bit.”

“Why?” Simon asked. “I really wasn’t smoking! You believe me, right? Right?” His question was cut off by his shaky breathing.

“Shh…” Sam replied gently. Pacifica couldn’t see what was happening in the room, but she could easily visualize Sam holding Simon in a hug. “I believe you. You’re a good kid. You wouldn’t do something like that, and it’s not right that our parents are freaking out about it.”

“Will you tell them that?” Simon pleaded, begging for any reprieve. There was silence. Pacifica was tempted to burst into the room and console Simon herself, but knew that it wasn’t her place.

“I’m sorry,” Sam sighed. “But no. This is something you’re going to have to work through.”

“But why?” asked Simon, getting choked up again. Having his own brother speak against him, someone he clearly looked up to enough to go to for help in the early morning, hurt immensely.

“Do you remember what I told you at the Christmas party last year, when you wanted to sneak into the other parts of the Northwest Manor?” Sam asked. Pacifica leaned even more closely to the door. She had never heard of this before.

“That the Southeasts are both south, and east, and that… that…” Simon fumbled for the answer. “No,” he finally replied, coming clean.

“Don’t feel bad,” Sam smiled. “It’s complicated, and I only told you once.”

“Will you tell me again?” Simon asked hopefully.

“Of course,” Sam answered. Pacifica wished that she could see what was going on behind the door, but visualized Sam pulling his younger brother onto his knee as he started to speak. “We’re Southeasts. We’re a combination of two things—the south, and the east, and each of those directions is a different thing. And we have to know which side of ourselves to present at different times. Do you remember what the south represents?”

“Penguins?” Simon offered. Sam laughed loudly before stifling the noise, as Pacifica felt a smile spreading across her face.

“Close!” encouraged Sam. “The south is cold and icy. It takes no prisoners, and brooks no opposition. Whatever the south wants, the south gets, and anyone who fights it gets severely punished. In South Carolina, it’s kind of the same—it’s hot and wet, but the landscape is vicious. The south is the dangerous part of ourselves, and it’s what our parents focus on. But, what is the east?”

“The ocean?” Simon replied, seriously.

“Actually, yes,” Sam smiled. “The east is the rising sun, open water, and hope. It’s freedom, and it’s life, and it’s what you and I have inside of us.”

“But didn’t you just say that we also have the south?” Simon queried.

“I did,” answered Sam. “We have both. We have the unyielding south, and the vibrant and happy east. And what you’re going to learn how to do, just like I did, is how to show our parents the south side of you, while keeping the east inside your heart and living like that whenever you’re alone.”

“But why do we have to do that?” Simon rightfully asked. “They’re our parents. We shouldn’t have to hide how we are from them.”

“I know,” sighed Sam. “But, until we’re all grown up, that’s just the way it is. You know how they can be. I know you know how they can be.” Pacifica visualized both of them casting their eyes downward as Simon reached out for another hug, which Sam happily gave. She felt her blood boiling at Stephen and Sophia, only to chill as she remembered exactly how Preston and Priscilla were.

“But, how does that help me with military school?” Simon begged. “They’re going to make me eat worms!”

“No, they’re not,” reassured Sam. “They’re not really sending you to military school. They’re sending you there for a week in the hope that it will make you more south than east. But we’re not going to let that happen.”

“Are we going to run away?” Simon asked hopefully. Pacifica inwardly hoped that the answer would be yes, though she knew that wasn’t realistic.

“Not yet,” chuckled Sam. “Things aren’t that bad. Here’s what I’m going to do. Do you remember Hugh?”

“Hugh… Hugh…” Simon mumbled. He acted as though he knew the answer, when he clearly didn’t. Pacifica heard the slight thud as Simon stopped rubbing his chin, and let his arms flop down by his side. “No.”

“Well, I guess you were only three when he left,” Sam shrugged. “The point is, Hugh was one of my old friends from middle school, and he’s up at the New York Military Academy right now—he’s actually one of their senior class officers. We’ve stayed in touch over the years, and I’m going to give him a call first thing tomorrow morning. He’s going to talk to the head guy in charge, and try to explain the situation. I can’t promise that it’ll be easy, but he’ll take care of you.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Simon sniffled, wrapping his older brother up in another hug.

“But, I need you to do something for me,” Sam continued, placing his hands on Simon’s shoulders and gently pushing him away.

“What?” Simon asked in trepidation.

“I need you to be strong,” Sam smiled. “For the next week, you need to dig into the south side of yourself, and hide the east. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be good practice. Eventually, you’ll get so good at it that you’ll be like me.”

“I still hate that I have to do it…” Simon mumbled, his expression downcast.

“So do I,” answered Sam. “But for now, that’s the way things are. In the future, we’ll be better.”

“We will?” wondered Simon hopefully.

“We will,” Sam confirmed. “But, that’s down the line. Right now, you need to focus on the next week. Which means that you need to be well rested, and it is past your bedtime.” Pacifica heard the creak of Sam’s bed as he stood up, and started to step towards the door.

Her eyes grew wide in panic as she stepped backwards, bumping into Dipper and causing him to stumble. Turning around, she grabbed him by the loose cuff of his jacket and steadied him as she rushed for the stairs. No longer caring about moving slowly or being overly quiet, she leapt with graceful tiptoes towards the foyer. She winced at the heavier thud of Dipper’s footfalls, but hoped that Sam would be too focused on Simon to notice.

Hair lashing around her shoulders as she turned around the corner, she dragged Dipper towards the right staircase and hopped onto the banister, using it to support her weight as they rushed to the bottom. Bending her knees and crouching as she made impact with the wooden floorboards, she turned to the left again and dashed into the parlor. Slowing down, she turned once more before she let herself stop, finally ending up in the dismal and dusty living room.

Spinning around, Pacifica planted her feet into the carpet and raised her arms, bracing against Dipper’s bulk to bring them both to a stop. His momentum, checked by her strength, slowed until he stood unsteadily on one foot. With a grace unexpected for someone of his lankiness, he spread his legs and planted his feet into the threads of the rug. Face to face, and breathing heavily, Dipper and Pacifica froze.

Their eyes instinctively looked up to the ceiling as the boards above them creaked. Using the sounds, they traced in their minds the path Sam and Simon took back to Simon’s room, and then the measured strides Sam took back to his own space. He paused briefly at the top of the stairs, causing their breath to hitch. But, after a moment, he continued on. The slight clicking of his door closing confirmed that they had gotten away safely.

“That was close,” Dipper began breathlessly, before Pacifica shook her head. They wouldn’t be free to talk until they were outside. Pacifica, still holding Dipper’s hand, turned and led the way out of the house.

They stealthily opened the door that led into the dining room and stepped inside. The long table cast distorted geometric shadows in the moonlight, the moon seeming to hang almost perfectly outside of the large rose window. With no internal lights on, the serene scenery outside was visible—the waves, sand, and trees gilded in silver.

With measured footsteps, they crossed to the kitchen. Pacifica was grateful that she was wearing supple sneakers instead of sharp heels—any clicking sound made as they walked would have been echoed and amplified by the still hall.

The door to the kitchen didn’t even squeak as they pushed into it. The smells of dinner still lingered in the space, though the chefs had meticulously cleaned everything before they left. There were two light sources in the room—the moon shining in from outside, and the blue shaft of light cast by the open fridge door.

Dipper furrowed his brow, wondering why the fridge had been left open—it seemed unlikely that the professional chefs would have made such an amateur mistake. He released Pacifica’s hand and crossed over to it, opening it up and feeling the blast of cold air hit his face—whoever had left it open, it had been done recently.

He closed the door, and turned to look at the stainless steel tables in the center of the kitchen. Atop one of them was a wispy, tangled sheet of plastic wrap. Part of the wrap was covered with a white film—like grease had congealed on it. Delicately, he picked up the trash and tossed it into the can.

Dipper then turned to look at Pacifica, who shrugged. As odd as it was, the most likely explanation was that someone had just come down for a midnight snack. They knew that both Sam and Simon had been up, after all. For the time being, that was a satisfactory enough explanation for Dipper, who was much more compelled by Pacifica as she crossed over to the door in the kitchen that led outside.

She opened the interior door with what was, by now, a practiced hand, and then popped open the exterior screen door with a bump of her hips. She held the screen door open as Dipper closed the solid one behind them, and then released it. The hydraulic mechanism squealed lightly as the door settled into place, finally closing and leaving them safely outside of the house.

“Now,” Pacifica sighed with a smile as she turned and faced out into the backyard, “we can finally talk.”

Dipper turned and took her hand as they both began walking into the backyard. The air was warm and humid, but the steady breeze off the ocean was enough to make the night chilling—the sweatpants and jackets had been a good idea. However, what was a gentle droning of insects inside was a reverberant cacophony outside; cicadas, palmetto bugs, and crickets joining in a meticulous symphony that soon became an endless drone of noise. The gentle splashing of waves from across the dunes provided a constant thrumming bass.

Dipper took special care to step away from the bushes and branches where the members of this orchestra could be hiding. He had dealt with plenty of monsters in his time, but he still wasn’t fond of bugs. Little creepy crawly things were a lot harder to keep track of than big, loud, stomping things.

Hand in hand, Dipper and Pacifica walked beneath the palmetto fronds and onto the soft, dewy grass of the backyard. As their eyes adjusted, they became better able to see the details of the plants and pathways behind the Southeast Estate, and the stairs that led up to the walkway over the salt marshes.

“I can’t believe that they’re really going to fly to New York just to scare their kid,” Dipper murmured as they stepped onto the walkway, the wooden boards creaking under their weight. “You have to actively try to be that bad of a parent.”

“You have to put in the work,” sighed Pacifica, “but that doesn’t mean they think what they’re doing is wrong. Even bad people think they’re good. That’s why they’re so dedicated to being awful.”

“It just doesn’t make sense to me,” answered Dipper, shaking his head. “It’s not that hard to see that traumatizing a kid is wrong.”

“They don’t think it’s traumatizing,” Pacifica shrugged. “Same way my parents didn’t think that stupid bell was traumatizing.”

“I think the Southeast’s have something like that,” Dipper offered. “I wasn’t sure at first, but I think it’s when their parents click their tongues. Both Sam and Simon seem to snap to attention whenever that happens.”

“Good eye,” replied Pacifica. “You’re absolutely right. Sam and I have talked about that before. He’s gotten better about not listening to it with age, but it’s hard to throw it off entirely. Believe me.” Pacifica shivered, prompting Dipper to wrap his arms around her and pull her close—not out of warmth, but out of empathy.

Sighing, Pacifica leaned into him as they walked along the walkway, penetrating deeper and deeper into the salt marshes. The Southeast Estate was extensive, which allowed the path to go on for quite some time. Beneath them, the gentle gurgling of water was the only sign of movement amongst the cordgrasses. Occasionally, from a nearby tree, the piercing caw of a bird overwhelmed the insects, though most of the herons and egrets had gone to sleep. From much farther away came the distant, thumping bellow of an alligator.

The night was alive, and so were they. There was no need to speak, as they walked hand in hand through the marsh. Pacifica had been too riled up to go to sleep, but the energy of the night was doing nothing to help matters. She didn’t want to rip Dipper’s shirt off anymore, but she was instead struck by the sudden impulse to scream into the wilderness—just to announce her presence to the world. Knowing that they were still close to the Southeast estate, however, she swallowed the urge. The silver moon seemed to thank her for the silence.

“You never answered my question earlier,” Pacifica finally spoke, as a thought worth bringing into the world crossed her mind. “I know you’re not fond of the Southeasts, but what do you think about the Estate?” They continued walking as Dipper turned the question over in his mind, thinking carefully before answering.

“It’s not the same as Gravity Falls,” he began. “It’s not necessarily worse, and there’s definitely a lot of stuff to investigate here. Even just walking through Charleston was fun—and let’s not get started about all the kinds of things that could be lurking around in this swamp.” Craning his head, he peered over the handrail and down into the algae-covered waters below. As though answering his statement, the distant alligator bellowed again.

“Mostly alligators,” smirked Pacifica, bumping into Dipper playfully.

“Certainly alligators,” Dipper smiled back as he placed his hand on the guardrail for extra stability. “But as fun as the alligators are, I still don’t think I like this place as much as Gravity Falls.”

“Why?” Pacifica asked curiously. “I know you wouldn’t say that unless you had a list of reasons.”

“You know me too well,” replied Dipper, returning her casual bump from earlier. “For one,” he began, “it’s really hot. And wet. I’m from the west coast—I’m used to dry and hot, and wet and cold. Not the other way around.”

“That does take a lot of getting used to,” acknowledged Pacifica. Even the slight movement they were making as they walked was enough to cause a thin sweat to break out on their skin, causing their sweatpants to stick to their legs.

“Plus,” Dipper continued, looking around. “The ghosts that haunt this place are much less… personal than the ones back in the Falls.” Instead of the alligator, from the distance now came the howl of a dog.

“Personal?” Pacifica asked curiously, looking up at the sky as she mentally scrolled through what she could remember from the journals about ghosts.

“Do you remember the lumberjack?” Dipper asked, slowing down as they walked.

“ _Do you remember the lumberjack?”_ Pacifica sneered mockingly, making her voice high and nasally. “Of course I remember the lumberjack, Dipper. A lot of important stuff happened that night.”

“Right,” Dipper continued, barreling over her sarcasm. “Well, Archibald Corduroy had a specific vendetta against your family. All ghosts have a reason for their hauntings, and his was personally against the Northwests.”

“Right,” answered Pacifica, not yet seeing what Dipper was driving at. She could still remember the fire in that ghost’s eyes as he hunted her—both the literal fire, and the metaphorical one. “But what does that have to do with the ghosts here?”

“The ghosts here are angry,” replied Dipper, tapping his fingers on one particularly warped board. “And it’s not just anger at the Southeasts, or any other family here. It’s anger at all of them, at the world, at the universe.” Dipper shivered.

“How could you possibly know that?” Pacifica asked in astonishment. “It took us so long to even find Archibald back then, and that was in Gravity Falls. We’re really far away from the Gravity Well now, so whatever ghosts are here are probably going to be weaker. The Southeasts have never ever reported a haunting, and I doubt that one’s going to start now.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” Dipper acknowledged. “I don’t know any of this for sure. It’s just a feeling. And I don’t think that we’re going to have a problem with any spirits—but they’re definitely here. Maybe they just want us to know that they’re here.”

“Do you think we should warn the Southeasts?” wondered Pacifica aloud as they turned a corner on the walkway, now heading further inland. Though the marsh waters beneath them remained deep, the gentle crash of the waves now faded away behind them.

“Sam already knows,” Dipper announced. “Simon’s too young, and Stephen and Sophia don’t care.”

“What do you mean Sam already knows?” asked Pacifica. “You haven’t been alone with him to talk about it since we first got here.”

“You can tell he knows,” smiled Dipper sadly. “The same way you know. A person carries themselves in a certain way when they understand that their name is haunted. It’s humble. Respectful.” The dog howled again.

Pacifica didn’t know what to say to that. She had only recently come to terms with the history of her family, so it made sense that Sam had done the same. Perhaps that was one reason why they got along so well.

She looked up at Dipper, and saw the beginnings of stubble on his cheeks glistening in the moonlight. It was in moments like this that she became aware of how immensely far ahead of her he was when it came to understanding the weirder aspects of the world. He knew nothing about normal people, or social interaction like she did, but it was sometimes difficult for her to shake the notion that his field of study was somehow more important than hers.

“It’s not like we could ever change the past, anyway,” continued Dipper. “The best thing to do it just live in the present, and make sure that you can be proud of your actions.”

“Can we really not change the past?” asked Pacifica curiously. “There was that whole time-travel thing your first summer, you know.”

“I know, and it didn’t work out well,” Dipper grinned. “You try to fix one problem, and you wind up causing a bigger one. You try to woo a redhead who’s out of your league, and you rob your sister of her pet pig.”

“But think about how much better it is this way!” smiled Pacifica. “Now you’ve got me, who is also incredibly out of your league.”

“That’s true,” Dipper acknowledged, bending over to kiss the top of her head. “You would have been a terrible parent to Waddles anyway.”

“I would not have!” Pacifica defended herself, taken aback by the accusation. “That pig and I would have gotten along great! He would have had all of the fancy scraps he could ever want!”

“He prefers buttered toast and corn,” laughed Dipper. “Not caviar. Plus, don’t forget that this was before you went on your journey of self-discovery.”

“That’s true,” mumbled Pacifica. “As fantastic as I am, I don’t think that I could ever be as good a parent as Mabel.”

“To pigs, at least,” answered Dipper, his voice strangely flat. Pacifica cocked her head to the side in curiosity as she felt blood rush into her ears. She opened her mouth to speak, but froze before sound came out as a noise unlike any they had heard before echoed across the marsh—this one much, much closer.

“What was that?” Dipper whispered as they spun on their heels, taking in every angle around them. Before they had been interrupted, they had been approaching the end of the walkway—there was one final turn before it terminated in a small gazebo on stilts, with benches and a solid roof.

“I don’t know,” Pacifica answered, taking Dipper’s hand before continuing to approach the final turn. She felt his muscles tense as he considered pulling away and urging them to go back, since they were ill-prepared for any paranormal encounters, but he soon steeled his resolve.

They paused as the sound echoed around them again. It was a small plop, followed by a light splash, and then a sharp, quick, vicious snapping. Moving slowly, Pacifica peeked around the corner of the walkway. Just as outside of Sam’s room, she felt Dipper’s hand on her waist as he leaned over her. Confusion crossed both of their faces as they tried to process what they were seeing.

The gazebo stood forty feet away. Leaning against the far railing was Mabel, her frame silhouetted against the midnight blue sky, the silver moon casting its pale light onto her flowing brown hair. She too wore sweatpants, though she had chosen a short-sleeve shirt and sandals instead of a jacket and sneakers. Next to her on the railing sat a plate of sausage balls—every so often, she would reach over and pick one up, slightly nibbling at it before tossing it away into the marsh water.

“Mabel?” whispered Dipper as his brows furrowed, his voice just loud enough for Pacifica to hear. Amidst the cacophony of the insects, there was no way Mabel could have heard him. “What’s she doing here?”

“I have some ideas,” Pacifica murmured, taking a step back and forcing Dipper into the shadows around the bend in the walkway. They were now safe from both Mabel’s eyes and ears.

“What is it?” Dipper asked, befuddled as to what was happening. Mabel wasn’t the kind of person to spend melancholy nights staring at the moon—that was decidedly his territory.

“I think you two need to have some sibling time,” whispered Pacifica into Dipper’s ear, before pulling him down to gently kiss his cheek. “Talk to her and find out for yourself.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Dipper, looking down at his girlfriend. “Do you want me to walk you back to the Estate?”

“Trust me,” Pacifica smiled, “I’ll be fine. Sam and I used to time how long it took to run the entire walkway. I could find my way back with my eyes closed.”

“Okay,” sighed Dipper, leaning back to peek at Mabel again. The pile of sausage balls was steadily diminishing. “I’ll see you back at the house, then.”

“And, hopefully, with you out of the bed, I’ll actually be able to sleep,” Pacifica winked, before turning around and receding into the darkness. Dipper watched as she vanished, with a little more sway in her hips than normal. He heard her footfalls for a moment longer, and then, Dipper was alone in the night.

Spinning around uncertainly, Dipper stepped out onto the final stretch of walkway approaching the gazebo. He wasn’t sure what was going on with Mabel, but she was still his sister, and he knew that the best way to get through this would be by being direct and clear. After everything they had gone through before, he was certain they could handle whatever was facing them now. The challenges would be different, but not more impossible.

He paused a moment and took a deep breath, smelling the peculiar combination of salt and rot that dwelt in the marshes. He stepped forward and strode confidently towards the gazebo, placing extra force on his footfalls so Mabel would hear him approaching. The last thing he wanted was to scare her and send her tumbling over the railing and into the dirty water.

“It’s probably not a good idea to feed the alligators,” he announced as he saw her ears perk up. Even though she had picked up on his presence, she still started, almost tipping the entire platter into the marsh.

“Oh, Dipper!” she sighed, catching her breath before leaning back against the railing. Dipper joined her, looking out over the marsh on the other side of the platter. “You scared me.”

“Sorry about that,” Dipper answered as he took in the view. The rest of the walkway had been obscured on both sides by towering trees—oaks, palmettos, and sweet gums. However, the gazebo sat at the edge of a large open floodplain, allowing an unobstructed view of the marsh. Cables of water sat at rest, while the grasses living on thin strips of land were ruffled by the breeze. In the silver moonlight, they almost looked like water themselves.

“What are you even doing out here?” Mabel asked, voice sullen as she picked up another sausage ball. This time, she didn’t bother to nibble before tossing it in the water.

“Pacifica and I were taking a walk,” Dipper answered honestly. He looked down at the water, and saw a thin trail of bubbles as a turtle approached the floating sausage ball and sank its beak into it. Looking more closely at the water, Dipper could see dozens of turtles, and the dozens of sausage balls that they feasted upon.

“Is Pacifica out here?” Mabel asked eagerly, turning around to look back at the walkway, only to turn back in disappointment.

“No, she headed back to the house,” replied Dipper, picking up a sausage ball and turning it over in his fingers. The surface of it was crispy and golden, the simple mixture of flour, sausage, cheese, and spices rolled into a spherical delight. “The real question is why you’re out here. You’ve never had trouble sleeping. Unless you were hopped up on sugar, or had a sleepover.”

“No sugar tonight,” Mabel answered, voice downcast as Dipper sank his teeth into the sausage ball and chewed thoughtfully. It was good.

“Then why are you out here?” Dipper asked bluntly. Mabel didn’t move, and continued looking at the turtles. Dipper swallowed, and continued speaking. “If you want to tell me, of course. I know that Pacifica and I have been hanging out a lot recently, and that this entire day has been absolute chaos. But, even with all the changes that have been happening, you’re still my sister.”

Mabel tossed her hair back and forth, almost like a horse would use its tail to clear the air around it. Dipper looked down at her pale arms, and saw that red bumps were already beginning to form where mosquitos had bitten her. Her white skin was punctuated by lighter bands yet, where her nails had been furiously scratching.

“I know,” she answered, voice quiet before gaining strength. She lobbed another sausage ball into the marsh, farther away this time. Dipper licked his lips—as much as he respected turtles, the idea of letting such delicious treats go to them alone was untenable. He picked up another. “It’s just that, when Pacifica and I were shopping today, she asked me if I liked Sam.”

“Huh,” Dipper responded noncommittally after a moment of silence. This revelation had caught him by surprise. He had been so worried about Sam stealing Pacifica away that he had never before considered how Mabel felt in the new dynamic. He wasn’t opposed to the idea, but he hadn’t noticed any special chemistry that Sam and Mabel seemed to have—to Dipper, it was no stronger than the chemistry that Sam had with everyone. “What was the answer?”

“I think I do,” Mabel answered, cracking a smile for the first time since Dipper had joined her at the railing. Where her braces would have previously glinted in the moonlight, now only shone her teeth. “But it’s been kind of hard to tell.”

“Hard to tell?” asked Dipper, confused. “You’ve never had a problem with knowing when you’ve liked a guy. Even when I told you that they were bad news.”

“That’s because you know nothing about romance,” Mabel chastised. “Or, at least, you didn’t back then. I guess that now you’ve got more experience with that than me.”

“Yeah…” murmured Dipper. He was experiencing several conflicting emotions at once. He didn’t want to take away Mabel’s expertise with relationships by acting like he knew everything—he still remembered the alpha-twin debacle over the extra millimeter. He also didn’t want to steer into too much detail about what exactly he and Pacifica had experienced together. Such intimate details were too privy to be shared with anyone, let alone his sister. “I guess I do know some things,” he finally offered.

“How did you know when you liked Pacifica, then?” asked Mabel, turning to face her brother. “I mean, I know I read all of that stuff you crossed out in your journal about the party and lumberjack ghost, but what did it _feel_ like when you realized what was happening?”

“Well,” Dipper began, laughing to himself as he thought back to how he had been at thirteen. He and Mabel were about to turn seventeen, and weren’t far removed from those early summer days, but the way his thinking had changed had been dramatic. He wasn’t even mad about Mabel snooping in the journal. “There were about six months where I laid in bed staring at the ceiling, trying to work through whether Pacifica and I actually had chemistry, or if it was just something I was making up.

“Then, the next summer came around and we all started to spend time together, and I had to make sure that she actually liked me too. Then, the summer after that, I had to convince myself that it was statistically likely and emotionally worthwhile to ask her to go investigating weirdness. Then we spent the next summer doing that weird back-and-forth, will-we-won’t-we thing where we both knew what was happening, but no one wanted to speak it into existence. Then we drove up to Seattle for our sixteenth birthday, and the rest is history.

“So… the question of when I knew I liked Pacifica is a complicated one. There was never any one moment where I realized what was happening. It was slow. Even though I thought about it almost every day, coming to terms with it in a way I could actually process and understand was very drawn out.”

“And what did it feel like while you did that?” Mabel asked again. Dipper’s long winded anecdote about how he had thought his way through his relationship with Pacifica hadn’t actually answered his sister’s question.

“It felt like flying a plane in turbulence,” Dipper offered after a moment of thought. “I mean, I’ve never flown a plane, but I imagine that’s what it’s like. I’m in a plane, I have the controls, and I know vaguely how to fly it, but I have no idea what the air around me is going to do. There’s a deep anxiety in your stomach that makes you twitchy, ready to react at a moment’s notice.”

“I guess it’s good that our flights today didn’t have a lot of turbulence, then,” Mabel murmured.

“It’s nerve-wracking while you’re in the air,” Dipper acknowledged. “But, once you’re able to set that plane down on the ground, it’s a feeling of elation unlike any other in the world.” Dipper closed his eyes, revisiting that euphoric moment in Seattle when, in a swirl of red, green, and blue sparks, he and Pacifica had finally kissed.

“It sounds scary,” Mabel offered, taking a large bite out of a sausage ball before adding it to the water. The turtle that swam up to it looked at it skeptically, angry that he was getting less than his compatriots in the marsh, but he soon took the snack uncomplainingly.

“It is,” confirmed Dipper. “But, if you think that Sam is the kind of guy you could get along well with, then I think that it would be worth going for it. So, I guess what I’m saying is that you have my permission to go after him. I won’t tell him anything.” Mabel shot him a piercing glare, causing him to throw up his hands and step back. “But, it’s not like you needed my permission. I’m just saying that I think Sam is mature enough to handle it,” Dipper continued, correcting himself.

“It’s not about your permission,” Mabel replied, rolling her eyes as she turned back to the marsh. She picked up a sausage ball and, after setting it on the railing, flicked it into the water. It got a surprising amount of distance. “It’s about me giving permission to myself.”

“What?” Dipper laughed. “I get not knowing whether you like someone, but you’ve never let long odds stand between you and a guy you knew you like.”

“That’s the problem,” murmured Mabel. “Or, _a_ problem at least. And I don’t like the implication that the odds of me and Sam getting together are too long.”

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to elaborate on that first thing,” Dipper answered, implicitly acknowledging that he had been out of line to talk about the odds of the relationship working out. “It seems like tenacity would be a good thing here.”

“I’ve liked a lot of guys,” Mabel answered, interlacing and extricating her fingers repetitively. Dipper looked at her hands, and noticed that the skin around her fingernails had been rubbed red and raw. “I’ve liked a lot of guys a lot. And I still do. And who knows who I might find in the future? If nothing stops me, and I find someone I like, what’s to stop me from running away from Sam to someone else? My impulse control has never been great.”

“At least you finally admit it,” Dipper smirked. Mabel cast a disparaging side eye at his cracking a joke during a serious conversation. “But, are you saying that you don’t want to get with Sam because you’re afraid you might cheat?”

“I’ve liked a lot of guys, Dipper,” Mabel answered, voice barely audible over the chirping of the insects. “Norman, Mermando, Gabe, Hudson, various Piedmont guys and bands and vampires and elves. And I still really like them! If Hudson regrew his beard and texted me again, I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself from answering.”

“You don’t have to stop yourself from answering,” Dipper replied softly, reaching out to gently place his hand on Mabel’s shoulder. Even though it wasn’t cold outside, he could tell that she was shivering. “It’s fine to like people, even when you’re in a relationship with someone. I still like Wendy, as a friend. The difference is that you don’t violate the trust of the person you’re in a relationship with.”

“That’s what I really don’t want to do!” confirmed Mabel. “But Hudson has, or had, a better beard than Sam. Sam and I have a mutual love of pigs. And Mermando is a fish! I love all of those things the most, in different ways.”

“Yeah… the merman was a bit of an outlier,” answered Dipper, rubbing the back of his head with his free hand. In the water beneath them, the turtles snapped impatiently, wanting another treat thrown their way. Mabel obliged.

“His hair was gorgeous,” murmured Mabel to herself. She slapped her arm quickly as she noticed another mosquito that had landed on it. The bites didn’t spell out anything, but they were starting to accumulate in a dramatic and painful fashion.

“And he was a fish,” Dipper reminded her, though Mabel didn’t seem to notice. “But, it’s also not wrong to like something about someone more than you like that thing about your partner. If I can make a confession to you, I honestly like Candy’s glasses more than I like Pacifica’s.”

“Really?” asked Mabel in surprise. “Candy just has wire frames. Pacifica’s got that fancy, geometric pink plastic.”

“I don’t know,” shrugged Dipper. “I think the wire just works for Candy in a way the plastic doesn’t for Pacifica. Now, if she had some tortoiseshell glasses, with thick frames…” Dipper sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth as he visualized his girlfriend in such a pair of glasses. “That’s a different story. Of course,” he continued, turning to Mabel, “if you ever tell Pacifica that I said that, I’m going to feed you to the turtles.”

“It is a death I would accept with dignity,” Mabel saluted, before leaning back over the railing. “I get what you’re saying. Sometimes, though, I see something like the glint in Sam’s eyes, and I just vibrate. If I was with Hudson, I would run to Sam without a second thought.”

“You think that now,” answered Dipper pointedly. “But that’s because you’re only looking at the outside of a person. Being in an actual relationship changes the game. The depth of love and commitment that you will get from that one person you choose to be with will so far exceed whatever anyone else can offer you that it will blow you away. It’s something you can’t understand until you feel it.” Dipper stared off into the distance, now thinking of that first conversation that he and Pacifica had had under the emerald moon, driving on the banks of the Columbia River. “And, once you feel it, you won’t even think about running to someone else.”

“You’re not joking, are you?” asked Mabel, looking at Dipper in profile.

“Never,” replied Dipper, utterly serious. “Never about this. And never when we have an actual serious conversation.”

“It has been a while, hasn’t it?” smirked Mabel, looking at the few sausage balls that remained on the platter. As she turned over what Dipper had said in her mind, her breathing became easier, and she felt some of the stress that had been concentrated in her muscles dissipate and flow away. Whatever happened for the rest of the week, she would approach it with an easier disposition. She scratched the mosquito bites on her arm instinctively, and winced.

“It has,” Dipper acknowledged, pitying Mabel’s suffering. “I’ve missed these.”

“Me too,” Mabel replied. “Hopefully Sam won’t end up missing these sausage balls.”

“I may keep that a secret,” Dipper smiled. “He would approve of being nice to the turtles from a humanitarian standpoint, but maybe not from a conservationist one.”

“What happened to the sausage balls, then?” Mabel asked as she picked up the platter and turned to face Dipper. “Just in case he asks?”

“I got really hungry,” Dipper answered, picking up another ball and placing it in his mouth. “I took the platter outside and got attacked by a pack of pelicans.”

Mabel burst into laughter at that image, causing Dipper to almost choke on the sausage ball. Once he had regained his breath, however, he joined her in the laughter.

“Fine,” Mabel said, rolling her eyes. “We’ll see if the genius investor is dumb enough to buy that.” She dumped the remaining sausage balls into the brackish water, the influx of food causing an immediate feeding frenzy among the turtles. Satisfied and smiling, she tucked the silver platter under her arm.

“Come on,” said Dipper, turning and leading the way back towards the house. “Let’s get back to the Estate so you can get some lotion on those bites. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”


	10. Surf

Pacifica grimaced as she felt the rough scrape of the concrete sidewalk against her exposed toes. The screen door to the kitchen swung shut behind them as the four teenagers emerged into the dim morning light, the grass and palmettos of the backyard glistening with crystal dew. The crash of the waves echoed beyond the dunes, while a thin mist hung over the horizon. The birds were quiet, almost respectful of the solace of the scene.

Sam had knocked on all of their doors promptly at 9 AM, and quickly urged them to get dressed and ready—the tide was coming in, and the only good waves for surfing were at the absolute peak. His parents and Simon had already left for the airport, which meant that they now had the entire Estate to themselves. Upon hearing Sam berating them, Dipper had only hugged Pacifica more tightly. Having had an early morning and late night the day before, he wanted to rest—Pacifica, however, had pried herself loose from his grasp and slowly clambered to her feet. With the pillow of Pacifica no longer there, Dipper had begrudgingly gotten up as well.

As slow as Dipper’s start had been, however, he now appeared fully energetic and ready for a morning on the beach. A message on the Weslee had revealed that the _Stan o’ War II_ was making good time, and would likely be arriving at the Southeast Estate shortly, further pumping him up. Now, he wore a pair of swim trunks bearing three horizontal stripes of navy blue, daffodil yellow, and eggshell white. He wore a loose white t-shirt to protect from the early morning chill—and, like Pacifica, he was barefoot.

Pacifica, her hair piled up atop her head in an intricate bun, was wearing the hat she had purchased from the shop in downtown Charleston the day before, though a thick blanket of clouds covered the sky in a shield of roiling gray. The air, strangely, felt drier than it had the day before—rain would not be coming today. She wore a modest one-piece swimsuit, dyed a rich and royal purple and accented with white. The straps at the top crossed over her chest, connecting around the back of her neck. A pair of small white shorts, fraying at the edges, covered her lower half. Every exposed inch of her was covered in thick white sunscreen, which was only slowly being absorbed into her skin. Under her left arm was a beach towel—light blue, with a Hawaiian pattern of orange flowers on it.

Tentatively, she stepped forward, feeling every sharp fragment of the sidewalk on her tender feet. She glared at the back of Sam’s head—he had assured her that the walk was going to be soft, nothing but grass and sand.

Sam himself led the way, wearing a pair of much tighter swim shorts, suitable for surfing. They were completely navy, contrasting powerfully with his blonde hair and pale skin—he had not yet spent enough time in the sun for a tan to develop. Pacifica had always been envious of that fact about him—he could darken to the color of rich caramel, but she burned almost every time she went to the beach or the pool.

In addition to the swim trunks, Sam wore a red and gray long-sleeve shirt that clung to his torso, even before it had gotten wet. Under each of his arms he carried a surfboard—his personal board, which was patterned in an intricate design of blue and white, and a more generic board hued in green and yellow. Dipper had offered to help carry the boards, but Sam had turned him down. As the host, it was his responsibility to provide for his guests.

Pacifica had never gotten the hang of surfing, no matter how many times Sam had insisted that she try it. One time, in particular, the waves had bashed her up against her surfboard and left a wicked band of black and blue bruising across her arms. For a month, her parents had forbidden her to wear anything other than long-sleeved shirts to obscure the damage—particularly difficult, since it was the middle of July when it had happened.

Pacifica would not be surfing today—however, Dipper was practically foaming at the mouth for the chance to have Sam teach him how to ride the waves. Despite living in California, he had never been surfing before—it wasn’t as popular in San Francisco as it was in Los Angeles.

Following Sam’s lead, the four teenagers walked out into the backyard. With tentative steps, distributing her weight as evenly as possible, Pacifica pranced forward until she finally stepped onto the cool grass of the backyard, feeling the wet green blades cushion her feet. Dipper and Sam seemed to have barely noticed the cement as they walked forward. Pacifica occasionally envied their seemingly thicker skin.

“Wow,” said Mabel, stepping forward from the sidewalk and into the grass alongside Pacifica. She had chosen to wear flip-flops, so she had no quick motivation to get off of the concrete. “It’s cold out here.”

“How is it cold?” asked Pacifica incredulously as she looked around. It was slightly cooler than it had been the day before, given the early hour, cloud cover, and breeze coming from the ocean, but it was still South Carolina in July. It couldn’t have been less than seventy degrees. “Besides, you’re the one here wearing the most clothes.”

Mabel wore a swimsuit like Pacifica’s—one-piece swimsuits tended to look the same. However, instead of being purple, it was almost entirely matte pink. The only deviation from this color was over her left hip, where the brand name of swimsuit was in white text—however, Pacifica only knew this because she had seen Mabel in this swimsuit before.

Over the swimsuit, she wore a pair of loose and baggy shorts, not unlike the ones that Dipper wore to sleep. The top of the swimsuit, meanwhile, was covered by a pale blue sun shirt that obscured almost all of her skin—her figure, which had been so beautifully accented by her dress the night before, was invisible. Her hair cascaded down her back like normal, though it was covered with a black ball cap, proudly featuring a rainbow on the front.

“Because it’s cold out here,” Mabel fired back, lifting her nose in the air. “That’s why.”

“I’m sure it is,” answered Pacifica, not believing Mabel for a second. If she had truly been concerned about the temperature, she would have brought one of her sweaters along with her.

“Are you two coming or not?” Sam playfully called back at the two girls, who had paused as soon as they stepped into the grass.

“Yes!” Mabel instantly chirped back, enthusiastically charging forward, flip-flops making an obvious slapping sound as she ran. Pacifica shook her head before moving forward at a more measured pace.

She was unsure of what exactly Dipper had said to his twin sister last night—after leaving them alone on the dock, Pacifica had returned to the Southeast Estate and promptly gone to sleep. She had intended to stay up to hear what Dipper had to say, but her own exhaustion and the soft, cool bed had gotten the better of her. She hadn’t even been aware that Dipper had returned until she had woken up in his arms the next morning.

Whatever they had talked about, however, it must have been effective. Despite Mabel not wearing a swimsuit to show off her body, which Pacifica admitted would have been the obvious play, she had been open and enthusiastic in her interactions with Sam over the course of the morning. She simply seemed more like Mabel—the sickness and confusion of yesterday overwhelmed by her genuine and honest Mabel-ness.

Pacifica smirked as Mabel, almost on cue, turned to the side as she ran. Extending her arms up in the arm, she tumbled over and started to do a happy cartwheel on the soft grass.

Her left hand impacted the ground gently, her spare frame and precise legs swinging through the air. However, as her right hand touched the grass, she let loose a yelp of pain and crumpled to the ground with a thud, clutching her hand.

Pacifica rushed forward to help her as the boys turned around, alerted by the noise. Seeing Mabel collapsed, they raced over to her, with Dipper arriving before Sam. Pacifica crouched on the ground next to Mabel, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Mabel, what is it?” Dipper asked as Mabel rolled over onto her back, sitting up with a grunt.

“Ow!” Mabel finally announced, sniffling as she extended her hand. A sphere, slightly smaller than a golf ball, rested on her palm. The orb was covered in twisting organic spikes, dry and stiff, which had embedded themselves in her fragile skin.

“Ugh,” began Sam, leaning the surfboards up against a nearby tree as he knelt down next to Mabel and took her injured hand in hers. Pacifica felt Mabel’s breathing become still and rigid. “Sorry about that. This is a sweetgum ball.” He looked at the tree the surfboards were leaning up against with disdain. Orange spheres hung from the branches, though they were still largely obscured by a rich carpet of green leaves.

“A what?” Mabel asked in confusion, eyes darting all over the scene as Sam gently grabbed the edges of the ball and lifted it up, expertly navigating the thin barbs out of Mabel’s skin.

“Sweetgum,” Sam affirmed, briefly standing up to toss the ball into the nearby marsh. “That shouldn’t have been here. They only fall in the autumn, so this one was really early.”

“I don’t think we have those over in California,” Mabel murmured, looking at her hand. It wasn’t bleeding, but the outer layers of the skin where the ball had landed were now rough and ragged. Given a day or two, she would be good as new.

“Probably not,” shrugged Sam. “Sorry about that. I should have warned you about these. They’re really annoying. In the fall, there are _so many_ of them.”

“It’s not your fault,” Mabel affirmed. “Like you said, it wasn’t supposed to be here.”

“Still,” Sam shrugged, shaking his head in consternation. Once again, he took Mabel’s hand in his and looked at her injury. “It doesn’t look like it broke the skin. Give it a little bit of time, and you’ll be good as new.”

Mabel was unable to keep a little gasp from escaping her as Sam took her by the hand and pulled her to her feet, effortlessly lifting her from the ground.

“Thanks,” she finally choked out as Sam smiled at her, before turning to retrieve the boards.

“Are you sure you’re fine?” Dipper asked as the blush slowly left Mabel’s cheeks and her breathing leveled out. “I think I have some of Ford’s medicine in my bag upstairs if you want me to run and get it.”

“I’m fine, Dip,” Mabel announced, playfully rubbing her hands together to show that she wasn’t hurt. “Let’s just get to the beach and have fun!”

With that, Mabel dashed forward, following Sam towards the dunes. Dipper watched her walk away, raising one eyebrow as Pacifica approached and stood next to him.

“So,” Pacifica smirked, taking Dipper’s hand in hers. “Was I right about Mabel acting a little weird, or what?”

“I don’t know if you get credit for that,” Dipper smiled back, arms swinging gently as they both advanced, barefoot, towards the sand. “Mabel’s always been a little off. Besides, she told both of us what it was that was bothering her. Your detective skills didn’t uncover anything.”

“No, but my eyes did,” laughed Pacifica. “You should pay more attention to these things. It’s not so hard to figure out if you look.”

“I do look!” Dipper defended. Pacifica cocked one eyebrow in knowing disbelief as Dipper blushed. “I mean, I mostly look at monsters and things, but I do look.”

“People are just as mysterious and weird as your monsters,” Pacifica replied. “If you can come up with some kind of theory to explain them, they ought to give you a Nobel Prize on the spot.”

“But that’s why I have you,” Dipper snickered as they approached a valley in between the dunes. “So I don’t have to worry about social interaction.”

“I’m not your people secretary,” Pacifica reminded Dipper as they took their first tentative steps onto the sand. It wasn’t bright white like the beaches of Hawaii, or a rich gray like the Oregon coast—rather, it was a pale brown color, tinged through with bands of darker and lighter material as you approached the ocean.

Pacifica wiggled her toes, digging into the soft grains as they walked forward. The slight moisture in the sand made it cling to her legs—a sensation that was perfectly acceptable at the beach, and absolutely nowhere else. She took special care as she walked to avoid the small, dry shoots of seagrass that shot up from the sand, and the constellations of shells and rocks that studded the surface. As she and Dipper stepped onto the beach proper, they got their first unvarnished view of the untamed Carolina coast.

The gentle dunes gave way to a flat plane of sand, tightly packed by the action of feet and water. A band of sharp, finely ground shells ran horizontally across this sand, stretching from one end of the horizon to the other. The color of the tightly packed sand started pale, but got darker and darker from ambient moisture as the gentle incline approached the ocean.

The waves crashing against the sand were certainly not as large as the massive swells that could be found on the Oregon coast, or even on the beaches of Northern California. For the most part, they were too small to surf on. However, as Dipper looked further out towards the horizon, where the gray sky met the green sea, he saw more movement among the water—the waves here weren’t large, but they lasted a long time due to how shallow the angle of the coast was.

Breaking up the action of the waves were piles of stones jutting out into the ocean, reaching over forty feet out into the water. They were clearly man made, and it only took Dipper a few moments to realize that they were intended to prevent erosion. Other than these stone structures, the rest of the beach appeared empty. It was reserved for the community of Seabrook Island, and the Southeasts specifically, so there was no risk of umbrellas and beach balls detracting from the beauty of the ocean. The only signs of life were the sandpipers scurrying about, pecking at the sand whenever they found a potential meal. Gulls were notably absent, preferring the more commercial beaches farther to the north and the south.

For a brief moment, Dipper couldn’t see Sam and Mabel. It was almost as though they had vanished from the beach. Dipper felt a tugging at his arm, however, as Pacifica directed his attention farther down the beach, where the two other teenagers could clearly be seen crouched on the sand, looking at something obscured from view by a patch of sea grass.

“I know,” Dipper finally answered, squeezing Pacifica’s hand as they turned and started to walk down the beach to join the others. “But you are a lot of help sometimes.” Overhead, a flock of brown pelicans flew south, dozens of them arranged in a V-formation.

“And I’ll be glad to help,” Pacifica replied, bumping up against Dipper. “Just make sure you help me too.”

“Any time,” Dipper smiled, tempted to bend over and kiss Pacifica. However, he restrained the impulse, not wanting to be too distracting for Sam and Mabel.

As Dipper and Mabel approached the others, they could finally see what they were looking at. At first glance, it was nothing more than a slightly misshapen pile of sand. At the four corners of the pile were metal stakes, with orange tape wrapped around the top of them. Mounted to one of the posts was a small sign, bordered in red, that revealed the mystery.

“Is this a turtle nest?” Dipper asked, crouching down curiously next to Mabel.

“It is!” Mabel shrieked. “Sam was just telling me about how he was here when these eggs got laid.”

“I was,” Sam smiled. “It was a green sea turtle, a few weeks ago. She had just started to come up out of the water when I got here. The waves were good that day, but it was more important that I made sure mama was safe. I stayed here until she got back in the water, and then put up the tape.”

“When are they going to hatch?” Pacifica asked, smiling at Mabel’s wide eyed expression. It was just a mound of sand at the moment, but Pacifica could tell Mabel was imagining the hundreds of tiny turtles that would soon be scurrying towards the water.

“It usually takes about two months,” answered Sam. “I’ll do my best to be here when it happens. I should be able to scare away most of the birds.”

“Did Mabel tell you that she once put a bunch of baby turtles in her backpack and carried them to the ocean?” Dipper smirked.

"She hasn’t,” Sam laughed, looking at Mabel. For a moment, the brunette seemed embarrassed, before waving off the comment.

“I did!” she acknowledged proudly. “And all of those little squirts made it to the water.”

“You know, you shouldn’t technically do that,” Sam playfully chastised. “It’s disorienting to them. It’s not natural.”

“It’s better than getting eaten!” Mabel exclaimed. “Turtles are my second favorite animal, and I’m not about to let them get hurt.”

“I respect that,” Sam smiled. “Sometimes you have to go against what you’re supposed to do to do what’s right. It takes courage.”

“Yeah, well…” Mabel blushed. “I wouldn’t say it was courageous. I really didn’t think about it. It was just instinct.”

“Then you’ve got good instincts,” Sam replied. Dipper and Pacifica looked at each other, amused. There was a brief pause as both Sam and Mabel looked at the nest, neither seeming willing to speak. “So…” Sam finally continued. “You said turtles were your second favorite animal. I take it that the first is pigs?”

“Of course it’s pigs,” grinned Mabel, relieved to finally be back in her conversational comfort zone. “As great as turtles are, they could never surpass Waddles. Maybe if I was a mermaid.”

“I bet turtles are a big part of merculture,” Sam answered, tentatively, looking back up at Dipper in a way that almost seemed to be asking for confirmation of what he was saying. Dipper shrugged in response.

“I don’t actually know,” Mabel answered, fingers twitching. She wanted to reach out and uncover the eggs, but knew that she shouldn’t. “That never came up in conversations with Mermando.”

“Mermando?” Sam asked in confusion. This was the first time that he had heard the merman mentioned—he knew that Gravity Falls was full of anomalies, and had spoken with Dipper and Pacifica about several of the monsters that they had encountered over the summers, but Mermando had never come up.

“Oh, yeah,” Mabel answered, before briefly pausing. She would have gushed about Mermando to anyone else, but knew that it would be better to choose her words carefully around Sam. The romantic history would be best left out. “He was a merman we met in the Gravity Falls Public Pool our first summer there. We helped him get back to his family.”

“How exactly did a merman wind up in a public pool?” Sam wondered, even more befuddled than before. “More importantly, how did he survive going from a salt environment to a chlorine environment?”

“Bycatch,” Dipper shrugged in response to the first question, cutting Mabel off. “As for the water thing, I have no idea.”

“I’ll ask him in the next bottle I send,” Mabel replied.

“You’re pen pals with a merman?” Sam asked, more astounded now than confused. The Pines were remarkable people.

“Yup!” Mabel answered. “He’s underwater, so obviously texting won’t work. We have to use waterproof ink.”

“And it’s very expensive,” Dipper added, shaking his head. Pacifica elbowed him in the ribs, causing him to look at her defensively.

“Cost shouldn’t matter for friendship,” Sam replied, standing up and dusting his hands off. His knees, trained as they were through surfing, handled the movement perfectly. Turning, he helped Mabel to her feet in the same way he had under the sweet gum tree. Expecting it this time, Mabel contributed some of her own power and sprang up into the air with a light hop. “If you need any cash for ink, just let me know. I’ll have Pacifica pay for it.”

“Watch it, Southeast,” Pacifica cautioned, smiling as she did so. “There’s not room in the Northwest budget for letters.”

“Oh, is money that tight?” fired back Sam sarcastically. “I should warn my parents to reconsider our marriage. You’re a liability.”

“I’ll reconsider the marriage for you,” Dipper warned, playfully making a fist. Comments that would have incited a brawl months before were now barbs exchanged in knowingly good fun.

“Let’s see how you surf before you challenge me to a duel,” Sam answered, picking up the green board from where it lay on the sand and passing it over to Dipper. Sam then grabbed his own board and affixed the attached cord to his ankle, making sure that the board wouldn’t drift away in the event of a wipeout.

Before Dipper attached his cord to his own ankle, he first crossed his arms and pulled off his white t-shirt—Sam, wearing a professional surf shirt, would keep his on. Pacifica was unable to keep her eyes from searching up and down Dipper’s torso as he exposed his skin, crisscrossed with a web of scars. The healed wounds made a pattern that Pacifica, now, could recognize by touch.

“Paz,” Dipper began as he threw the crumpled up shirt to her. “Could you hold onto this for me?” Pacifica, caught off guard by the question, nearly missed the catch.

“Only if you don’t mind it getting sandy,” she called out as the two boys turned towards the ocean.

“I’ve got other shirts back at the house!” Dipper answered, responding seriously to what had been a sarcastic question.

“Ready?” Sam asked, turning to face Dipper.

“As I can be,” Dipper answered, breathing deeply. “I haven’t surfed before, though. Don’t you think it would be a good idea for you to show me some of the basics on land before we get in the water?”

“I believe that the best way to learn is by doing,” Sam laughed as he took off for the water in a full sprint. Dipper, caught off guard, ran after him, churning up miniature sandstorms as his feet dug into the beach. Pacifica shook her head and followed them, much more slowly. As she walked, she draped Dipper’s shirt around her shoulders.

Once they had gotten past the first breakers, Sam leapt into the air and gracefully pulled his board underneath him, landing on it stomach first as he continued to paddle out to sea. Dipper tried to mimic this—almost instantly, however, the board shot out from underneath him and submerged him underwater.

A second later, he popped back up. He turned to shore, wiped his wet hair from his eyes so that he could see, and offered Pacifica a thumbs up before he clambered onto the board, much more slowly and carefully this time.

Pacifica nodded in acknowledgement of the thumbs up as she reached the edge of the ocean. High tide was approaching, and the creeping fingers of the breakers, laden with seafoam, inched ever further inland. As the first pulse of water cascaded over her feet, pulling sand away from beneath her and causing her to sink ever so slightly down into the sea, she breathed a sigh of relief. She had been concerned about the water being cold, like it was in the Pacific, but the water here was only slightly chilling. It wouldn’t be pleasant to swim around in, but it wouldn’t send her running for a hot tub either.

Pacifica watched the two boys in the surf, feeling the soft brim of her hat gently waver up and down as the breeze pushed inland. Every so often, another, stronger wave would rush over her feet.

This wasn’t her favorite beach. It was certainly better than the beaches in Oregon, which were cold and harsh even in the middle of summer. Anyone who went swimming there would have to be superhuman not to be dashed against the rocks. However, this beach was nowhere near as suitable for relaxing as were the ones in Southern California or the Bahamas, where she had often spent vacations simply basking in the sun—under plenty of sunscreen, of course.

However, the things that made this beach special were twofold. Unlike the Oregon beaches, which were often rocky and barren, the coastline here was teeming with life. Trees, grasses, and animals in the air and in the water where everywhere. This coastal habitat was unlike any in the world, hospitable for man and animal alike.

The second thing that made this beach worthwhile were the people she was with. Sam and Dipper had finally paddled out past the breakers, and turned to face the shore. They pulled themselves up onto their boards, sitting, and waited. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but imagined that Dipper was listening eagerly as Sam told him how to avoid dying.

Another wave broke over Pacifica’s feet, this time reaching almost halfway up her calves. The tide was coming in faster than she had anticipated. Wiggling her toes to free herself from the suction of the sand, which by then had almost completely covered her feet, she turned and walked back up the beach. She intended to find a suitable place to lay her towel, and then sit and wait for the sun to come out.

Upon turning around, however, she was surprised to see Mabel already sitting in the sand, legs bent at an odd angle as she tenderly ran her fingers through the dry sand. Every so often, she would find a shell and blow on it to clear the grains away before sitting it back onto the beach. She still wore her sun shirt and shorts, sand accumulating in the fabric as she looked down at the beach.

Pacifica reached up to her neck and pulled Dipper’s shirt tight around her as she walked back up the slight incline to Mabel. Instead of standing over her, Pacifica stepped to the side and spread her towel out to Mabel’s right. The wind generating by flapping the towel churned up some of the sand, causing Mabel to turn away and squinch her eyes shut until it was flat on the ground. Pacifica turned and, doing her best to keep her wet feet away from the towel, sat down on it.

Mabel continued to rifle through the sand, turning up smooth and colorful shells, often bearing hues of white, blue, and yellow. It wasn’t like Mabel to solely be focused on the sand. As cool as Pacifica thought the water was, Mabel would have immediately plunged into the ocean and frolicked around like a golden retriever unless there was something that was bothering her.

“Are you not getting in the water?” Pacifica finally asked, locking her elbows and leaning back on her arms. “It’s nice out there. It’s not the Bahamas, but it’s fun to run around in. The waves are big, without being too big.”

“No,” Mabel replied, taking a break from sifting through the sand to line up the shells she had unearthed, from biggest to smallest. “I don’t feel up for that right now.”

Pacifica took a moment to figure out how to respond. On the one hand, she didn’t want to push Mabel too far. But, to her, it seemed as though Mabel was deliberately seeking out reasons not to interact with Sam—her hand injury and the turtle nest had simply been too overwhelming to ignore. If the only thing keeping Mabel from swimming was her not wanting Sam to see her in a swimsuit, then it became a legitimate question where rational fear ended and insecurity began. It was so entirely unlike Mabel to be as anxious as she had been over the past two days that Pacifica found herself unsure of what to do.

She thought as she looked out into the ocean. A swell was rising up behind Dipper and Sam, and Pacifica could see Sam indicate that they should go for it. They both began paddling forward as the wave picked up speed. Finally, as the wave started to surge forward in earnest, they made their move.

Sam, anchoring his arms on either side of the board, lifted himself up and swung his legs beneath him, almost like an orangutan. Planting his feet, he then spread his arms and stood up, knees flexed to provide balance and stability as he coasted forward.

At the same moment, Dipper tried to pull himself to his feet. Instead of gripping the sides of the board and anchoring like Sam did, however, he tried to pull himself to a knee first. Instantly, the board flipped under his weight, casting him into the ocean with a yelp. Pacifica looked on in concern, but didn’t move. She had wiped out enough during Sam’s lessons to know what was normal.

The wave moved quickly enough that Dipper popped back up, almost in the same place that he and Sam had started. As Sam gently rode the crest forward, Dipper wiped his eyes clear and hauled himself back onto his board before paddling back out to try again.

Once at shore, Sam stepped from his board onto the sand effortlessly. He waved at the two girls, who returned the gesture before he turned and began returning to Dipper. As he did so, Pacifica kept a close eye on Mabel, who lit up at the wave but soon collapsed back into a dull pout. This was untenable.

“Do you want to go back to the house?” Pacifica offered, giving Mabel an out before she pushed farther with her questions.

“I’m fine here,” Mabel replied. She had grown disinterested with the shells, and instead started to pile up sand into a small castle.

“Is your swimsuit okay?” Pacifica asked. It was more roundabout than asking about Mabel’s concerns directly, but it also served to make the Pines twin more comfortable.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Mabel answered, once again strangely sullen.

“Okay,” Pacifica replied, not believing her. “I thought that maybe it was so sexy that it would have caused Sam to fall off his surfboard.” Mabel snorted in laughter at response to that.

“Yeah, right,” Mabel continued. “It’s not nearly as skimpy as that black dress you wouldn’t let me buy yesterday.” Pacifica watched in amazement as Mabel continued to sculpt the small sandcastle. Her hands, trained by years of making sculpture, were delicately molding the nondescript pile of earth into a detailed and intricate structure. It was far more complex than anything Pacifica could do, even with her training in classical sketching.

“If you were fine wearing the black dress, then I don’t know why you wouldn’t be fine wearing that swimsuit,” Pacifica offered. “You look good in it, you know.”

“Sure I do,” Mabel replied, clearly not believing her.

“I’m serious!” Pacifica doubled down. “And I don’t have any incentive to make you look bad. I know that you know you look good in it, because we’ve gone to the pool together before. I get not wanting to swim in the ocean—it’s fun, but the ocean is disgusting. Fish pee in it. But, even if you’re just going to be sitting on the sand, you don’t need to be wearing that three-piece suit.”

“A sun shirt and shorts are not a three piece suit,” Mabel fired back, rolling her eyes. “It keeps sand away from me, and keeps me from having to slather sunscreen on like you do. You look like an albino snowman.” Pacifica attempted to rub the remainder of her sunscreen in self-consciously before she returned her focus to Mabel.

“You clearly have no problem with sand,” Pacifica said, pointing at the intricate castle taking shape before Mabel, to which she had begun to add a second turret. Sand, both wet and dry, caked her hands and forearms. “And it’s not that cold out here. Which makes me think you have another reason for not wanting to get in the water.”

Mabel didn’t answer, instead looking up from her sandcastle and out towards the water, where Dipper and Sam were attempting to ride another wave. This time, Dipper made it all the way to his feet—almost immediately, however, he failed to put enough pressure on the nose of the board and it was forced out from under him, throwing him backwards into the water. Sam cruised on to the shore easily.

Once again, Pacifica waited until Dipper resurfaced, which he did in short order. That wipeout had appeared slightly worse, as he had been flipped almost completely upside down before he plunged into the sea. Dedicated as he was, he only took a moment to catch his breath and shake his head before he clambered back onto his board.

Just as before, Sam stepped from his board to the sand after a solid thirty seconds of cruising in. He waved to the girls again, and both of them waved back. He looked at Mabel’s sandcastle and offered an encouraging thumbs up, obviously impressed with her architectural prowess.

“Surely you’re not worried about Sam seeing you in a bathing suit?” Pacifica offered directly as the blonde turned and charged back into the water.

Mabel didn’t answer.

“You shouldn’t be, you know,” Pacifica continued. This conversation was even more uncomfortable for Mabel than the ones she had had with Pacifica before. In the airport, in Charleston, and in the bathroom, the only context to her struggle was Mabel liking Sam and not knowing how to approach him.

At the beach however, there was an undeniably physical aspect to things. And, even as far back as the inn in Seattle, Mabel had shown herself to be unsure of herself when it came to such things. Mabel was well versed in the theory of relationships, but grew shaky when it came time for her to test her knowledge beyond flirting and a simple kiss.

“I know,” Mabel mumbled. “It’s not like I’m not okay with it. I know that I’m not as… endowed as you are.” It was now Pacifica’s turn to blush and look away. “I’ve come to terms with that. I’m just nervous. It’s always been my personality that I’ve used to flirt before. Never with my… body.” Even if only wearing a swimsuit to the beach would have been more comfortable, that comfort would have been entirely displaced by her nerves.

“It’s still your personality that’s doing the flirting,” Pacifica reassured Mabel. She turned to the side and started to sculpt a castle herself, though it almost instantly crumbled. “The swimsuit just makes you a little more… compelling.” Pacifica pronounced the last word with a blend between disgust and admiration. Being physically attractive was no way to win a person over, not really, but no one could deny the role it played.

“Being compelling is what I’m worried about,” Mabel answered. “I mean, what if that’s all Sam starts to see? What if he doesn’t?” Mabel’s voice, quiet and measured, showed that she wasn’t quite sure which option would be worse.

“Don’t worry about that,” Pacifica winked slyly. “I promise that you’re going to be compelling enough. You’re compelling even in a sweater.” Mabel blushed at the compliment. “Besides,” Pacifica continued, looking back out to the ocean. “If you’re concerned about being too attractive, I could always wear the bikini that I brought. I’m sure both Sam and Dipper would get a kick out of that.”

“You’re disgusting,” Mabel snorted. “And that goes for both Sam and Dipper.”

“Hey, Dipper’s my boyfriend,” Pacifica laughed. “He has a right to find me hot.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to hear about it!” exclaimed Mabel, smiling. “Keep your bits and bobs to yourself.”

“Fine, fine,” Pacifica answered, waving her hand dismissively. “I’ll do whatever makes you the most comfortable. Whether that’s being distracting, or being not. If it’s the latter, I’m sure Dipper will be disappointed.”

“Dipper can deal with it,” laughed Mabel, looking up and back out towards the sea.

In the distance, another swell was rushing towards the shore. Sam gestured to it, and both boys could be seen getting ready to ride.

“And Pacifica?” Mabel continued, turning to face the blonde. “Thanks for everything over the past few days. I mean… I know I’ve been a lot. Things are different, and it’s taking a little bit to get used to them. Neither of us have sisters, but I think this is what it would be like.”

“You’re not the worst sister I could ask for,” Pacifica grinned, reaching out to offer Mabel a stabilizing hand as she completed a particularly precarious part of her sandcastle.

“Ditto,” Mabel offered, before they both heard an enthusiastic shout from the water and turned to look out at the waves.

Sam was pumping his fist in the air as Dipper rode the wave, quivering and shaking as he did so. Dipper had no time to enjoy the sensation of surfing as he flailed his arms back and forth, struggling to keep his balance. Pacifica cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted out in encouragement, prompting Mabel to do the same.

For a moment, Dipper stabilized. Then, the wave started to crest, and the board was thrust out from underneath him. Dipper’s feet sank into the water, dragging him down and slamming his torso down onto the water with a reverberating smack as the weight of the crashing wave bore directly down on him.

Pacifica shot up in concern, watching the foaming waves for the first sign of Dipper’s chocolate hair popping up above the water—for a glorious moment, he had managed to surf, but the ocean had shown no mercy in swallowing him up. In all of the times Pacifica had wiped out, none had been more painful than when the sea had forced her to belly-flop.

For a few moments, there was no movement—the water was too chaotic for Pacifica to see anything. Sam, riding the wave with a casual ease, didn’t even notice that Dipper had fallen behind him.

Pacifica felt her muscles tensing, ready to dash into the water and dig her way through the swirling sediment until she found him. At that instant, however, Dipper finally sprang from the water with a deep and panicking gasp. He collapsed beneath the waves again, but soon found his footing in the wet sand and stood up properly.

He waved to Pacifica, who breathed a sigh of relief as she felt hot anxiety drain from her muscles. Dipper had survived much worse things than a simple wipeout, and it was going to take something stronger than that to finally bring him down. Still, there was no need to scare her like that.

Turning, Dipper reached down to his ankle and removed the safety cord that still bound him to his surfboard. With an effortless pull, he wrapped the cord around his wrist and dragged the board through the foam over to him as he began to step out of the water—that final slam had convinced him to take a break. His skin was already turning red from the impact as the drying water left shimmering crystals of salt covering his scarred skin. Pacifica swallowed.

Dipper looked up at her with a smile as he set his first foot on the dry sand. She returned the grin before wincing and covering her ears—a shatteringly loud, penetratingly deep sound pealed over the waves, shaking her bones.

Every head on the beach snapped towards the north, redirecting all of their attention. Dipper’s face was instantly masked in an expression of worry and concern. Mabel’s sandcastle collapsed, and Sam fell into the shallow water with a grunt—though he regained his footing much more quickly than Dipper did.

Dipper’s expression dissolved into an even broader smile when he saw the source of the noise—approximately a mile to the north, the battered and beautiful hull of the _Stan o’ War II_ emerged from around a promontory. Squinting, the teenagers could barely make out the figure staidly piloting the ship from within the wheelhouse—the figure clinging to the top of the mast waving, whooping, and hollering was much more obvious.


	11. Heading

“Land ho!” bellowed Stan from atop the mast as the _Stan o’ War II,_ engine sputtering, slowly drifted into the small harbor on the northern side of the Estate. He then turned and started making his way down the ladder—his fear of heights truly had dissipated on top of that water tower. Dipper watched as Stan haltingly made his way to the deck of the ship—despite now being over seventy years old, he was as spry as ever.

“Yes, Stanley, I can see the land,” Ford fired back, rolling his eyes. “We’ve been able to see land since we left DC.”

“Yeah, but not this land, Sixer,” Stan pointed out with a gruff confidence. “This land has got our people on it!” Bending up, Stan hefted a heavy coil of rope onto his shoulder and began to swing the end of it around as the teenagers walked out to the end of the dock. They had walked directly from the beach to the harbor, so they were still wearing their bathing suits—Dipper and Sam still dripping wet.

The dock jutted almost a hundred feet out into the water, providing plenty of space for yachts and other expensive boats to anchor themselves during parties or business meetings at the Estate. Even now, the Southeasts had a small luxury boat moored to the left side of the pier. Next to it was a much smaller craft with a mast—a small sailboat with a low draft that Sam sometimes took out into the marshes or ocean, if the weather was cooperative.

However, both of these much fancier crafts were dwarfed by the _Stan o’ War II._ Made from an old fishing trawler that had been remodeled and upgraded by the Stans, it stretched to just over sixty feet in length. The gleaming hull was made of thick aluminum, though the interior ribs that supported it were high-strength steel—the combination of metals made the craft flexible enough to handle rough seas, but strong enough to handle monsters. After three years of roaming the ocean, the hull had recently been repainted—it was now a deep green, almost fading to black in certain places. The name of the ship was white, scrawled in Ford’s intricate cursive on the bow and rear of the ship.

In the middle of the boat sat a structure clad in similar aluminum, though the internal bones were made of wood. Painted white, it shone luminously even with the cloud cover overhead. Around the first floor of this structure were large panel windows, allowing the teenagers on the dock to barely make out the kitchen inside—small, but stocked with everything that could be needed for survival. Dipper and Mabel had seen the interior of the boat before, during the Stans’ first trip back to Gravity Falls for Soos’s wedding. However, neither Pacifica nor Sam knew the mysteries that it contained—only the outside was apparent.

Atop this first floor was a smaller structure—it was open to the air on the sides, but had plastic panels that could be closed to protect from the elements when needed. The top of the shelter glinted darkly, topped with solar panels to harness energy for the boat. It was under this structure that Ford stood, manning the wheel of the ship with a broad smile as he piloted the craft closer to the dock.

“Ahoy there!” Sam called out as Stan raised the thick rope he was swinging. “Have a good trip?”

“Catch this first, city boy!” Stan replied as he let go of the end of the rope and sent it sailing through the air over to the dock. Dipper instinctively lunged for it, but it fell just short of his fingertips. Sam, with a hand practiced from years of working with boats, easily snared it.

Sam then passed the end of the rope to Dipper, and they strained together to pull it in. Stan made his way to the back of the _Stan o’ War II_ and grabbed a similar rope. He didn’t bother throwing this one, as he was close enough to the pier to hop over the railing of the boat and onto the wooden planks.

The _Stan o’ War II_ bumped up against the dock with a slight shudder, cushioned by the rubber floats that dangled from the dock’s support posts. In unison, Sam and Stan knelt down and lashed the ropes to the worn metal cleats of the pier. Ford, seeing that the ship was securely fastened, turned off the engine—now, the only sounds were the chirping of birds and the gentle lapping of the water as it ran against the side of the ship.

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel cheered, running down to greet him as Stan extended his arms for a hug. Mabel was no longer small enough to leap into his arms, but that didn’t stop her from grabbing ahold of him as tightly as she could. Stan grunted for a moment, bracing himself before he returned the hug. Stan looked even strangely like Ford than usual—he was wearing a long waterproof coat and a toboggan along with supple leather gloves. However, beneath the neck of the coat, the Hawaiian print of his shirt could be seen.

Pacifica, Sam, and Dipper made their way to the rear of the boat more slowly than Mabel. Dipper’s eyes were fixed on Ford, who took a moment at the wheel to make sure that everything was in order before he turned and descended the ladder to the deck. Once there, he swung open a small gate in the railing and extended a gangway out to the dock—he wasn’t about to vault over the railing as Stan had done.

“Hey, kids,” Stan greeted, ruffling Mabel’s hair as the others gathered around in circle. Ford, stepping onto the dock, gave Pacifica a light handshake and hugged Dipper softly before wrapping Mabel in a much tighter squeeze. Pacifica and Sam exchanged glances as the Pines greeted each other—as much as Pacifica was becoming a part of the Pines family, she still wasn’t on hugging terms with the grunkles. Sam especially wasn’t. Judging by the expression on his face, Sam found the entire exchange relatively foreign.

“How was the water?” Dipper asked, taking a step back to slide next to Pacifica. Stan, looking at Pacifica for the first time, gave her a perfunctory nod. It was apparent that Stan still wasn’t completely sold on her and Dipper’s relationship, though he was no longer openly abrasive.

“It was a hard night of sailing,” Ford nodded, pulling on the sleeves of his turtleneck. “The water got a little bit choppy off the coast of Cape Hatteras, but we were able to pull through. We alternated turns sailing and sleeping, so it didn’t catch us off guard.”

“Sailing?” Sam asked in confusion, looking up at the ship. A single mast emerged from the center of the boat, rising over twenty feet in the air. Though it had all of the pulleys and holds necessary for a sail to hang from it, there was currently no cloth there. The only things affixed to the mast were an antenna at the very top, and a small metal bucket that served as a crow’s nest. The boom had been raised, and locked into place against the mast itself. “I thought this was a motorized boat.”

“It definitely is, Sam,” smiled Ford, turning and shaking the blonde boy’s hand. Dipper’s jealously from the last Christmas party was no longer there—the gap between Ford’s enthusiastic hug of Dipper and firm handshake of Sam revealed where Ford’s true affections lay. “We sometimes run a sail up there whenever we need to travel silently, or want a little extra speed. Most of the time, though, we use the motors. They’re just easier to handle.”

“Naturally,” Sam nodded. “Especially for a craft of this size—you’d need a lot more than one sail. This is a really big boat.”

“You like it?” Stan grinned, turning to look at the ship. “I had to take out a second mortgage on Ford’s house to buy it, but I think it was worth it.”

“I don’t even own the Shack anymore, Stanley,” Ford corrected—he knew Stan was joking, but couldn’t help himself. “But Sam, we bought it with some of the grant money left over from my doctoral studies. Thankfully, there was plenty left in the coffers afterwards to completely retrofit it.”

“I saw the new coat of paint!” Mabel smiled. “I like it. It looks classy.”

“It was Stanley’s idea,” Ford acknowledged. “I wanted to paint it white on the bottom and blue on the top, like a shark, so we would be less obvious to any creatures that happened to be swimming below us, but he talked me out of it.”

“Any of your monsters are going to have good enough eyesight to spot us regardless,” Stan confirmed. “Besides, this makes us harder to see in the dark. Which makes sneaking up to things easier!”

“Are you talking about sneaking up to sleeping creatures, or about sneaking up to banks and people’s houses?” Dipper smirked.

“Hey, I have never stolen from houses!” Stan defended, before Ford shot him a glare. “I have only ‘borrowed’ from the people in them who needed a product that I was able to provide at a reasonable price.”

“Yes, all of his crime is strictly white-collar,” Ford replied, rolling his eyes.

“The point is,” Stan redirected, “the boat is pretty now. I even let Ford paint the name on the side, even though no one can read his handwriting.”

“You can read it,” pointed out Ford.

“That’s because I spent thirty years trying to decipher it, Poindexter,” Stan laughed.

“I can read it,” Mabel raised her hand tentatively. Pacifica cocked her head to the side—she could read it fairly easily as well, though she had already known what it was supposed to say.

“Regardless of the name,” Sam smiled, “it’s a good looking boat. As nice as it is, though, it must get pretty old after a while. If you come up to the house, you can rest and we can fix you up with some beds. We have plenty of space.”

“You really don’t,” Pacifica whispered, barely loud enough for Sam and Dipper to hear her. Dipper snickered, while Sam turned to look at her.

“We have couches,” he whispered, shaking his head.

“You promised them beds, though,” Pacifica smirked, enjoying the defensive look on Sam’s face.

“Thank you for the offer, Sam,” Ford announced, redirecting everyone’s attention. “While we’d normally be happy to take you up that, there’s actually been a minor… change of plans.”

“Hold on a second, Ford,” Stan said, placing his hand on his brother’s shoulder and turning him around. With their backs facing the group, they walked a few steps away and started to whisper. Dipper exchanged glances with Pacifica and Mabel, confused and intrigued as to what they could be talking about. Pacifica, closing her eyes and focusing in on their whispers, was able to make out small snippets of their conversation.

“I thought you weren’t sure about that,” Stan whispered. “You told me you thought it was a computer error.”

“That was my first thought, Stanley,” Ford replied, “but the pattern has kept moving for weeks now. We don’t have to investigate it immediately, but I think we should at least get Dipper’s opinion before we decide to drop anchor here. We don’t know how long this phenomenon might last.”

“And Mabel’s opinion,” Stan corrected sharply.

“And Mabel’s opinion,” Ford acknowledged. “The point is that I think we should at least get their thoughts on the matter before we decide what to do.”

“That’s fair,” Stan sighed. “Just promise me that you won’t give one of those speeches about scientific duty. Don’t ruin the kids’ week together unless they want you to.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Stanley,” Ford sighed, smiling as Stan laughed. With their conference ended, the grunkles turned around and rejoined the group. Pacifica opened her eyes, blinking repetitively as she refocused and the salt breeze picked up. She shivered slightly—now that they were just standing on the dock instead of walking, she wished that she had worn something over her bathing suit. She had draped her towel over her shoulders, though that did nothing to protect her legs. Dipper had put his shirt back on, but both of the boys were shivering in the wind as well.

“What’s the big secret?” Mabel asked, putting her hands on her hips. She was the only one who was warm, sheltered by her dry sun shirt and shorts. They would all need to change and seek shelter soon.

“So,” Ford began, taking a pen out of his pocket and twirling it between his fingers. It helped him to focus during such an impromptu presentation. “Our original plan was to drop anchor here and stay for a little bit—exploring the city, doing some lab work, etcetera.”

“And harassing our relatives,” Stan added with a sly wink.

“Naturally,” Ford acknowledged with a nod. “But soon after we left DC, the computers back in the Shack started to pick up some very odd shifts in the weirdness distribution within the valley of Gravity Falls. I got that message from the home lab, and decided to check the work against the computers here on the _Stan o’ War II._ And frankly… what I found was even stranger.”

“What was it?” Dipper immediately asked, leaning forward. Pacifica was unable to conceal a bemused grin at her boyfriend’s enthusiasm. Looking over, she could see that Sam was leaning forward as well. A similar smile to hers was on Mabel’s face.

“Well, that’s what I’m not sure about,” Ford replied. “The easiest thing will be if you come on board and take a look at it yourselves.”

“I’ll give you a tour of the old girl!” Stan announced cheerily in an effort to lighten the mood. “You can get a look at our amazing lifestyle before Ford kills you with boredom and nerd stuff.” With that, he extended one arm and led the path over the gangway to the boat.

“Is it just me,” Pacifica began as she stepped onto the ship, feeling it sway only slightly beneath her, “or is it a little weird you refer to the boat as a girl even though its literally named ‘Stan’?”

“All boats are female,” Ford shrugged. “That’s maritime tradition.”

“It is a little weird, though, right?” Pacifica pushed, looking up at Dipper for confirmation.

“It’s a little weird,” both Ford and Dipper said in unison.

“Ahem!” Stan cleared his throat, gathering the attention of everyone who stood on the rear deck of the ship. “We’re ready to begin the tour, if you’d all stop fighting over the preferred pronouns of an inanimate object. This isn’t Spain.” Pacifica shook her head, while Sam was unable to keep a snort of laughter from escaping him.

“Please, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel announced dramatically. “Begin when ready.”

“Good,” Stan smiled proudly, pulling the lapels of his coat down more tightly over his shoulders. “As you can see, this is the poop deck.” He gestured to the floor they were all standing on—due to the high construction of the boat, this deck was almost four feet over the water. It was surrounded on all sides by a short railing to prevent anyone from tumbling off. At the very stern of the ship was an inset ladder leading down into the water.

Looking to the front of the ship, there were two doors leading into the metallic white cabin that dominated the deck. One door was to the port, and the other was to starboard—and in between them was a stairway leading down into the hull of the ship. The hatch that normally covered the stairway was held open with a rope.

“Question,” Mabel began, raising her hand. “Why is it called the poop deck?”

“Not for the reason you think,” Stan laughed—first at Mabel’s question, and then at the disappointment on her face. “Trust me, I was bummed out too.”

“People should just name things what they are,” Mabel mumbled to herself, causing smiles to appear on the faces of the three other teenagers.

“Anyway, this is the deck we spend most of our time on,” Stan continued, walking over to several notches that had been scored into the railing. “We’ve got space for deck chairs, fishing poles, worktables, and pretty much anything back here. This is the main thoroughfare on board.”

“And you keep all of this stuff belowdecks?” Dipper asked, curious as to where there was so much storage space for equipment on the ship. “Last time we were on board, there wasn’t a lot down there.”

“Retrofitting is a constant process,” Ford shrugged, taking the lead from Stan as he turned and walked down the stairs into the hull of the ship. “Watch your head,” he warned, tapping his fingers on a sharp corner as he did so.

Pacifica was able to walk into the bowels of the _Stan o’ War II_ with no problems, while Mabel only crouched slightly out of instinct. Dipper had to bend significantly, and Sam practically had to double over. Pacifica let out a chuckle as she saw the boys contort to fit through the hatch—the Stans, who had more practice, moved through it much more fluidly.

Once they were through the hatch, however, there was much more room to stand up. The hull of the ship was deep, seven feet from top to bottom. Even Sam had plenty of clearance, though he still crouched out of caution. At the very base of the stairs were two narrow doors, one leading to the left and one to the right. In a nook next to the door on the left were three fishing poles, held vertically on a wooden rack.

“This is storage and sleeping quarters down here,” said Stan, picking up and moving several plastic totes that were stacked along the walls. The totes were labeled with tape, showing that they contained everything from food to weapons to scuba gear to scrap metal. The steel ribs of the ship were plainly visible, and had holes in them to lighten the weight. The floor, however, was wooden. “Mine and Ford’s rooms are through those doors at the bottom of the stairs, but you don’t need to worry about them. There’s room for a bed, a tiny chair, a toilet, and a desk even smaller than the chair. No space for secrets.”

“What’s that, then?” asked Dipper, pointing to an oddly shaped metallic structure in the center of the floor, in the exact center of the ship. “That seems awful secretive.”

“And so does that,” Sam echoed, gesturing to a series of thick cables that ran down the starboard hull, stretching from holes in the ceiling all the way to holes in the floor.

“Nothing secretive,” Ford clarified, stepping forward. “Just clever. This thing here,” he continued, kicking the metal bracket with his boots, “is meant to be a bracket for the teleportation engine. If we ever get it working again.”

“The teleportation engine?” Sam asked in shock. “Dipper, you told me that thing got shredded along with the shapeshifter. I didn’t think you would be able to rebuild it so quickly.”

“It did!” Dipper defended emphatically. “I watched it fall apart, I promise you. But we’re nothing if not prepared,” he continued, grinning at Ford.

“There wasn’t anything left,” Ford smiled in response, raising a finger. “But I took scans of it before it was disintegrated. I’ve been using the past few months trying to rebuild it with metal I salvaged from Crash Site Omega before we left the Falls.”

“How close are you?” Dipper asked, smiling. The prospect of being able to finally help Ford with such a monumental invention was distracting indeed.

“There’s still some work to be done,” Ford acknowledged. “You’ll see it once we go upstairs. But, that’s not all there is to this room.” Ford knelt down and, grabbing ahold of a hidden handle in the floorboards, lifted a secret panel next to the engine bracket. Stan lurked back around the base of the stairs as the teenagers gathered around to peer into the hole.

There was only about a foot of clearance between the floorboards and the metallic hull below it. However, every square inch of that space was filled with horizontal server shelves, gleaming metallic black. Blinking lights and rainbow colored cables bound into tight bunches with plastic ties added splashes of color. Running from the bow to the stern were clear plastic pipes that water flowed through.

“You filled the bottom of the boat with computer servers!” Sam smiled, realizing what he was looking at. “That’s a lot of processing power in not a lot of space.”

“Aren’t you concerned about it getting wet and shorting out?” asked Dipper, looking up from the hatch to meet Ford’s gaze.

“Not really,” Ford shrugged. “Everything down there is coated in multiple layers of waterproofing material—the inside of the hull itself, the shelves and brackets, the electronics themselves, etcetera. And, if we ever run into a bad storm, we power everything down until the weather clears. That way, if any water does get in, we can let it dry and be none the worse for wear.”

“The water probably actually helps a lot,” said Pacifica, cocking her head to the side. “In such a small area, you’d need a lot of liquid to cool things down and keep it from overheating.” Ford, Dipper, Sam, and Mabel all looked at her in surprise. “What?” she shrugged defensively. “You know I play _Bloodcraft._ I know a thing or two about computers.”

“Indeed!” grinned Ford, standing up and closing the hatch behind him. “It’s always good to have someone else on board who can solve a computer problem without having to call tech support.”

“I called tech support one time,” scoffed Stan, gesturing that the others should follow him as he led the way back up to the deck.

“And we were in the middle of the ocean, and it clogged up satellite traffic for the syncing between the Gravity Falls computers and the ship computers,” Ford mumbled.

“You use that satellite to talk to people all the time on your fancy alien phone,” Stan fired back. “Let me show you to the kitchen before you get another dose of nerdiness.” With that, Pacifica, Dipper, and Sam vanished back up onto the deck.

“Hey, Grunkle Ford,” whispered Mabel, grabbing ahold of his shoulder as he started to head up the stairs.

“Yes, Mabel?” Ford asked, straightening his glasses as he turned around. “What is it?”

“I was just wondering if things are okay between you and Grunkle Stan,” she pouted, clasping her fingers together. “It seems like you guys are talking about how you annoy each other a lot.”

“Oh, Mabel, don’t worry,” Ford laughed lightly before taking on a more serious tone to console her. “We’re brothers. It’s what we do. Plus, we’ve been at sea for almost four years now. There’s bound to be a little bit of friction.”

“I guess so…” Mabel mumbled. “I don’t want you guys to have another falling out.”

“If we do, you’ll be the first therapist we call,” laughed Ford, gently ruffling Mabel’s hair before joining the others on the deck. Mabel, taking a moment to trade her serious expression for a smile, followed shortly afterwards. The sun was slowly peeking out from between the clouds, causing Mabel to blink and adjust her eyes as she stepped into the open air.

“As you can see,” began Stan, pointing at the two doors opening into the white cabin on the ship. “We have two doors here. If you look to either side of the doors, you can see that there’s a ladder leading up to the roof, where the mast and steering wheel are. And, beyond that are little pathways that let you get up to the bow. The bow isn’t as open as the stern, but it can be useful for fishing or taking wind readings.”

“I thought taking wind readings was a Ford thing,” Dipper playfully chided.

“Taking wind readings is a sailor thing,” winked Stan. “You’ve got to be smart to be a sailor, and I’m not half dumb myself.”

“So, that’s what’s on the outside,” interrupted Pacifica, eager to see inside the cabin. “But what’s through the doors?”

“Glad you asked, Northwest,” Stan bellowed before opening the door to the left and ushering everyone in. Pacifica cringed slightly at him simply calling her ‘Northwest,’ but it certainly wasn’t the worst thing she had ever been called.

All of the teenagers craned their necks to look around the kitchen of the ship. The floor plan resembled a letter ‘L’, and they were standing at the top of it. A narrow, rectangular table sat in the center, with six stools pushed up underneath it and lashed into place with bungee cords. Two of the chairs were much more scuffed up than the others.

The appliances included a small stove, oven, refrigerator, and sink, all of which were mounted on metallic rods to ensure that they stayed level whenever the ship entered rough water. There was limited counter space, but enough for the preparation of a small meal—a box of plastic gloves sat in a nearby holder for easy access. Above this counter, wrapping around the outside wall of the entire room were large-paneled windows that allowed in plenty of light, and provided an unbroken view of the sea and the outside of the boat.

Entering the kitchen and turning right, a small, three square foot closet was visible in the corner. The open door revealed that it contained a toilet and a shower. Pacifica crinkled her nose—it wasn’t pretty, but looked relatively clean. She imagined that Ford placed much more emphasis on sanitation than Stan.

“It’s not much,” Stan shrugged, glancing around with a contented smile. “But there’s enough here to keep us going.”

“Oh, you could do a lot with this,” announced Pacifica, stepping forward and taking the lead. She started opening the fridge and cabinets, looking at the ingredients that the grunkles had on hand. Her long standing effort to become a better chef had continued to develop, especially with the addition of the special menu at Greasy’s. It would be interesting to see what she could create with such limited resources.

“You cook?” Stan asked gruffly, unable to conceal his surprise. For a moment, the wrinkles around his eyes got lighter.

“I’m learning,” Pacifica blushed. “I still don’t think I’m that good at it yet. It’s complicated.”

“You’re telling me!” laughed Stan. “I do most of the cooking out here. Ford’s taste buds are weird. Plus, he usually spends most of his time in the lab.” As he spoke, Stan thumbed over towards an open doorway leading into the other room in the cabin.

Almost magnetically, Dipper and Sam were drawn towards this doorway—inside, they could see screens and open toolboxes that contained the promise of Ford’s laboratory. Ford smiled before following them, while Stan rolled his eyes. Pacifica lingered in the kitchen a moment longer—she made eye contact with Mabel to make sure that she was still doing okay. Mabel acknowledged her with a nod.

“Wow,” Sam exhaled breathlessly as he entered the lab. It was a mirror image of the kitchen, though there was no bathroom. A worktable with wheels sat in the center, while a series of small screens, toolboxes, and keyboards occupied the outside walls. However, these items were low enough to the ground that it was still possible to see out of the windows.

“It’s not like the one back at home,” shrugged Ford. “But there’s enough to work with here. If we ever get that teleportation engine running, we won’t have to carry everything with us all the time.”

“It looks like you’re making good progress, though,” cheered Dipper as he approached the lump of metal currently sitting on the worktable. It shone with the abalone gleam of alien metal, and the shape was exactly as Dipper remembered it—a confusing bundle of coiled pipes and wires, with a prominent screw in the top. The only difference was that the glass orbs weren’t attached to the engine—instead, they sat on special foam stands on a worktable against the outside wall.

“Like I said, it’s almost there,” Ford grinned. “Getting those glass spheres took a while, though—they had to be special ordered. The only thing I’m not sure about is the math around charging them with the teleportation… juice, basically. The notes I was able to scavenge from the _Borealis_ are less than helpful, and the scans don’t help as much as you’d think.”

“We’ll get to work on it, then,” smiled Sam proudly. Dipper, looking up, glanced at Sam and then smiled as well. “I’m sure we can get any extra materials that you might need here in Charleston.”

“Well, like I said earlier,” continued Ford, his face falling. “I’m not so sure we’ll be able to stay here. Come take a look at this.” Ford then walked over to the interior wall of the lab, the one that was opposite the bathroom in the kitchen. The wall was taken up almost entirely by a massive touchscreen—Ford tapped it twice, causing it to blink to life.

“What did you pick up on?” Dipper asked as Ford navigated to the screen he wanted. Soon, a satellite view of Gravity Falls came into focus.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Ford acknowledged, cocking his head. “But Dipper, you remember those tracking chips that you attached to some of the creatures in the Falls?”

“Of course,” Dipper shrugged. “It wasn’t easy.”

“Not easy, but invaluable,” Ford pointed out as he typed in a date on the screen—a month ago. The view of the Falls shifted slightly as it changed to the time in question. “It has let us track the movement of beasts and weirdness in the valley in unprecedented detail. Notably, like this.”

With that, he tapped a final button, and red dots flared to life all over the screen. They were distributed randomly throughout the valley, though Dipper could make out several pockets of activity—notably the unicorn glade and the manotaur cave. However, there was a very clear circular boundary around the town—the Gravity Well, which kept creatures from exiting the Falls. All in all, things looked as they should.

But then, Ford began to scroll forward in time. As the days advanced, the distribution of weirdness began to pulse and move. Slowly, all of the dots crept to the very edge of the Well—the larger pockets lasted longer, but then they too shifted. The boundary of the circle became redder and redder, almost as though something in the center was repelling the creatures to the edge. Once they could advance no further, they began to pace around the edge, a crimson tornado. Finally, once the present day was reached, the movement stopped.

“What is this?” Dipper asked breathlessly, knowing that Ford didn’t have an answer. “That’s not how the animals in the valley move. There has to be some explanation for this.” Pacifica reached out and clung onto his arm—seeing something like that happen so rapidly was frightening.

“There’s always an explanation,” Ford confirmed. “Which made me then zoom out and take a wider look. Following global weirdness with the satellites isn’t nearly as accurate as your trackers, but it can help to look at the highs and the lows. So take a look at this.”

Ford then scrolled back a month, and zoomed out to an image of the globe—the eastern and western hemispheres. He tapped another icon, which laid a heat map over the Earth—the redder a spot was, the more activity there was.

This time, as the clock ticked forward, global movement of weirdness became evident. Around Gravity Falls, an almost perfectly red circle formed—a burning eye, the creatures trapped within the valley. However, immediately beyond the boundary of the Gravity Well, the level of weirdness dropped off dramatically. Whatever could run away from the Falls was doing so, a warm wave of pink and orange flowing outward and leaving cool blues in its wake.

As these pulses of color fled from the Pacific Northwest, they started to concentrate in different places around the globe. Notably, several hotspots formed in East Asia. However, the most dramatic spike by far was in the sea off the southeast coast of Florida—it was previously a dull yellow, but now it shone almost as red as the eye of the Falls.

“Umm… is there a particular reason all the weirdness is going to the Bahamas?” asked Pacifica, pointing tentatively at the map.

“I don’t know,” replied Ford as the map approached the present day. He tapped the screen, and allowed it to play through the past month again. “But that’s what I intend to find out.”

“So you’re not going to be able to stay?” Mabel immediately concluded. “You’re heading on to the Bahamas?”

“Well,” Ford answered, rubbing the back of his head. “We’re not quite sure. I wanted to go ahead and investigate, but Stan told me that I should try to take things easy here for a little bit. Plus, we don’t want to interrupt your vacation.”

“No, you have to go!” said Dipper, leaning against the defunct teleportation engine. “This is an unprecedented chance to study weirdness in a place it hasn’t really shown up before, and who knows how long it’ll last?”

“Besides, it’s the Bahamas,” smirked Pacifica. “I know I wouldn’t turn up a chance to visit them.”

“Stan and I were actually talking about that on the way down,” Ford mentioned. Stan, leaning on the doorframe between the lab and the kitchen, nodded in confirmation. “I know how excited you guys were to hang out and work in the lab some, and we’d hate to just run off and leave you.”

“So,” Stan picked up from his brother, “we were thinking that you could join us on board for this mission.”

“Are you saying that we could go to the Bahamas?” asked Mabel, her eyes growing as wide as her grin. As fun as Charleston was, the prospect of visiting a tropical island was even more compelling.

“Now, it wouldn’t be all fun and games,” Ford cautioned as the four teenagers started to exchange glances, assessing each other’s opinions. “There would be work too.”

“There would also be some fun and games,” smirked Stan, happy to watch the excited expressions on the kids’ faces.

“Umm… can we talk this over for a second?” asked Dipper, gesturing that Sam and Mabel should move in closer.

“Of course,” Ford nodded, walking over to Stan and passing into the kitchen with him. The heat map of Earth on the screen played in a loop, showing the pulse of weirdness away from the eye of the Falls and the concentration in the Bahamas.

“So, what do we think?” Dipper continued, glancing around the other three faces. They stood in a circle around the teleportation engine—Pacifica next to Dipper, while Sam and Mabel stood at more of a distance.

“I’m really curious,” Sam began, placing his hands on the cool metal of the table and splaying his fingers. “And, my parents have just left for the week. I’m on good enough terms with the staff to tell them to keep this a secret. But we are going to need to be back in time for the Fourth of July party, and that’s less than a week away.”

“They were able to get from DC to Charleston in a day,” Pacifica shrugged. “I’m sure that we could get there and back in time. Plus, if they do wind up fixing the teleportation engine, travel time doesn’t matter.”

“Good point,” Dipper acknowledged. “But what about you, Pacifica? I know this isn’t exactly what you had planned, and spending a week on a boat with five other people may be a bit… grungy.”

“I fully expect it to be disgusting,” sighed Pacifica. “But, maybe that’s for the best. I’ve been able to spend a lot of time with you and Mabel, but not with Stan and Ford. Plus, I’m still trying to get out of my comfort zone. This seems like it’ll do just that.”

“Plus, it is the Bahamas,” Mabel snickered, batting her eyelashes.

“It is the Bahamas,” confirmed Pacifica with a smile. “And, no offense to your beach here, Sam, but it’s got nothing on the white sand there.”

“Aesthetically, maybe not,” Sam shrugged. “But this is home for me, and I want to take care of it. Speaking of that… Dipper, you’re absolutely sure that the research you and Dr. Ford do isn’t harmful?”

“Define harmful,” Dipper asked after a moment’s pause. “I mean, there have definitely been times where we’ve had to hurt, or even kill animals that were chasing after us, but the research we do isn’t exploitative. We don’t harm them, or make money from it.”

“Okay,” Sam replied after looking into Dipper’s eyes to make sure he was being truthful. “My family has taken advantage of enough people and animals over our existence. I don’t want to be a part of that any longer. So, if what we do is safe, then I’m in.” Pacifica glanced across the table to see Mabel looking at Sam with admiration.

“Everything’s on the up and up,” confirmed Dipper, raising his right hand.

“Then let’s go!” Sam cheered, before turning to face Mabel. “Mabel,” he asked, toning his voice down slightly, “is that okay with you?” There was a momentary silence before she answered.

“Are you sure that we’re good to do this, Sam?” Mabel asked quietly. “I know there was a lot of stuff around Charleston and the Estate that you had planned on showing us.”

“All that stuff will still be here when we get back,” Sam nodded. “Plus, if we don’t get to it all, that’s just an excuse for you to come back, Miss Starr.” Mabel struggled to keep the blood from her cheeks.

“It sounds like this is a pretty good deal then,” Mabel smiled. “Let’s go to an island paradise!”

“We’ll see what we can do,” laughed Stan, walking into the room with Ford close on his heels. They had clearly been eavesdropping—though, with the cabin as small as it was, it was tough to keep a secret.

“I also want to be captain!” Mabel quickly added, hoping that she could win another victory.

“That’s a no from me,” Ford laughed. “Stan and I will still be co-captains. You can be associate co-captain if you like.”

“What will I be, then?” Dipper asked defensively.

“The unpaid intern,” Mabel chuckled.

“How about associate laboratory co-captain?” Ford suggested with a smirk.

“The more adjectives we stick in front of captain, the less it means,” Dipper pouted.

“Hey, at least you have a title,” replied Pacifica. “What are Sam and I supposed to be?”

“You’re supposed to be guests,” Ford smiled gently. “Or, at least as much of guests as you can be on a boat this size.”

“We’ll pull our weight,” confirmed Sam, nodding in excitement.

“Let’s hope we don’t have to work too hard,” Stan answered, shaking his head.

“We’ll balance things out,” Ford nodded. “But before we do that, we need to figure out when we want to weigh anchor. If we want to get there on a decent date, we shouldn’t wait around too long.”

“We’ll need to go back and pack first,” Dipper replied, looking at Pacifica. “Plus change into some warmer clothes.”

“Two hours?” Pacifica suggested as the other teenagers nodded in approval.

“That works for us,” Ford confirmed. “If you don’t mind, Stanley and I would like to join you up at the Estate so that we can get cleaned up—the shower on board here works, but not well.”

“Fantastic,” Pacifica mumbled to herself. Dipper playfully bumped into her in response, while Sam stepped forward and took the lead.

“Of course,” Sam beamed, extending his arms. “While you’re up there, you can also go through the kitchen and see if there are any fresh ingredients you want to take. We also have some gas in the boathouse if you want to fill up the ship.”

“Alright then!” bellowed Stan, a smile stretching across his face at the prospect of the extended family fishing trip before him, his enthusiasm only slightly tempered by the presence of Pacifica and Sam. “Lead the way, Mr. Southeast.”


	12. Fishing

Pacifica pulled her jacket more tightly around her shoulders as the coastline vanished into the distance. The _Stan o’ War II_ had left the harbor, and was traveling directly away from land. The last sign of land was the Southeast Estate itself, with its rose window glinting in the new sunlight like a lighthouse. It stood silhouetted against the green trees, white and imposing.

As the Estate too disappeared, Pacifica turned and took stock of where everyone was on the boat. Ford was the only one she could see, standing at the wheel atop the cabin. The protective panels surrounding the upper shelter had been drawn back, allowing wind to whip around Ford’s face, his hair and trench coat flapping in the wind.

The weather was still relatively warm, and it was only going to get hotter as they drew nearer to the equator. However, the constant wind and spray of seawater leeched warmth from the bones. Pacifica was wearing leather boots, with loose jeans rolled down over the top of them. She had traded in her straw hat for one of Dipper’s ball caps, which made her hair easier to manage. Her torso was bundled up in a pink jacket, coated in plastic—however, it wasn’t nearly as protective as one of Ford’s overcoats. They weren’t fashionable, but they were certainly effective.

The rest of the people on board were currently belowdecks, in the hull of the ship, where the teenagers had carried their luggage once they had gotten onboard. Pacifica could hear the steady murmur of voices, along with an occasional thud as totes and suitcases were moved around. She flipped the collar of her jacket up to cover her neck, and then walked towards the central hatch.

The inside of the ship was lit by faint incandescent lights, giving the space a soothing yellow glow compared to the gray sea outside. In the corner, Mabel sat on a tote tying ropes to scraps of multicolored cloth. Stan, Dipper, and Sam were moving totes further towards the middle section of the ship, freeing up space in the bow.

“Allow me to venture a guess,” Pacifica began, crossing her arms, “but we aren’t going to have queen sized beds here.”

“Not a chance, princess,” Stan muttered as he surveyed the space, seemingly satisfied with the layout. The totes in the midship were stacked two deep, and plastic barrels of fresh water had been laid on their sides and lashed into place. The bow of the ship only had one row of totes, and the teenagers’ luggage was sitting on top of that.

“We’re getting hammocks!” Mabel cheered, standing up and advancing towards the bow, answering Pacifica’s question before she had even had a chance to ask it. Mabel handed one of the bundles of cloth to Sam, two to Dipper, and kept one to herself. Sam set down the strangely shaped black case he was holding to take it.

Mabel then walked up to the right side of the bow and unfurled her hammock, lacing the ropes through one of the holes in the steel support beams. The hammock itself was handmade, constructed from multicolored scraps of cloth—Pacifica wasn’t sure if these had been sewn by the Stans, or if Mabel had managed to do it in the few minutes that they had been at sea.

“Hammocks,” Pacifica said flatly, smiling weakly. She had spent many a lazy afternoon during vacations lounging around in a hammock, but had never actually slept in one. The prospect of trading in her mulberry silk sheets for a fabric cocoon was sounding worse by the second—but, given that they were already at sea, there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it.

“Come on, Paz,” Dipper cheered, walking over to the port side of the ship. “This’ll be fun. You did say that you wanted to go adventuring.”

“I wasn’t aware that adventuring involved sleeping in a sack,” Pacifica retorted, extending her hands to take one of the hammocks from Dipper. Dipper then turned and began hanging his hammock up next to Mabel’s, angled inwards at the tip of the bow. Sam would be sleeping on the starboard side, farther back from Mabel, while Pacifica would occupy a similar position on Dipper’s side.

“Adventuring involves all kinds of things you might not expect,” Dipper grinned as he started to lash his hammock into place. Pacifica unfolded hers, and held the ropes up to the beams in order to tie them together—however, she knew nothing about knots or how high she should hang it. She dropped her arms loosely and decided to wait for Dipper.

“You’ll get used to it,” Stan said as the teenagers set about preparing their living spaces. Seeing that they had everything under control, Stan then opened a large tote and pulled out a couple of lounge chairs. Hoisting them with one arm, he then grabbed two fishing poles from the rack off of the wall. “You kids take all the time you need to get things set up. Ford’s got the controls, and I’m going to relax.”

“Have fun Grunkle Stan!” waved Mabel as Stan vanished back up to the stern of the ship. Mabel had already affixed her hammock into place with a series of convoluted knots, far more complex than they needed to be. Now, she was rummaging through her suitcase and ensuring that everything was laid out properly.

Sam’s knots were simpler, but held the hammock just as well. Once he was done tying it up, he tested it with his arm before hoisting himself into it with a grunt. The ropes sagged, and the stitches strained, but the hammock held his weight comfortably—however, his feet did poke out slightly. Sam closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and relaxing as he felt the motion of the ship gently sway back and forth.

“Do you want me to put your hammock up?” Dipper offered, walking over to Pacifica and extending his arms. The question was mostly rhetorical, as Pacifica handed over the ropes without a word.

Turning, Pacifica watched as Dipper threaded the ropes through one of the holes in the steel beams. He chose a hole slightly lower to the ground than the one that he had used to hold his own hammock, to allow Pacifica to get into it more easily.

“Paz,” Dipper began, jolting her out of her reverie. There didn’t seem to be much to do at the moment, so she had become lost in thought watching everyone go about their business.

“Hmm?” Pacifica replied, turning to Dipper. He had already made several loops with the ropes, and was adjusting how taught the coils were.

“Could you hold this loop together for a second?” Dipper asked, gesturing with his head towards the rope in his right hand.

“No problem,” Pacifica answered, stepping up and raising her hand to take the loop. It was odd that Dipper needed help to tie this knot, when he had suspended his own hammock without difficulty—glancing over at his space, Pacifica saw that he had used a simpler knot. It was still sufficient for its purposes, but was more likely to fail. With Pacifica, however, he was taking no chances when it came to her falling out of bed at night.

“I’m sorry that we have to use hammocks,” Dipper apologized as he completed one knot, and moved to the other end of Pacifica’s space to tie up the other end. “We should have thought about that before we agreed to come on board.”

“It’s no big deal!” Pacifica declared, automatically extending her hand to help with the second knot. “Hammocks are good for boats… I think. I’m just disappointed that we don’t have a doublewide that we could both use together.”

“Trust me, you don’t want that,” Sam laughed from across the room, his voice reverberating off the metal walls. “You share a hammock with someone, you wind up literally laying on top of each other. One of you suffocates, you can’t move, the middle’s too hot and the outside’s too cold—it’s a nightmare.”

“Oh, and you have a lot of experience sharing hammocks?” Pacifica fired back. Her eyes briefly flashed over to Mabel, who paused in her unpacking before moving again, much more slowly.

“With Cornbread,” Sam chuckled. “I took her out on my sailboat one day and hung up a hammock to just lay there as we drifted. She insisted on getting in on top of me, and it took a long time to convince her to get out.” A smile cracked Mabel’s face as she set out a bundle of yarn and knitting needles.

“I suppose you get a pass then,” Pacifica responded, handing the final loop back to Dipper before bending over and lifting her suitcases onto a couple of totes. She unzipped them to make sure that everything was easily accessible, and then resealed them—there was no space to spread out her entire wardrobe.

“Many thanks, ma’am,” Sam snarked, tipping a fake fedora in her direction. Pacifica only rolled her eyes. She then quickly refocused and looked towards the stairs as a set of clomping boots progressed down into the hold.

“How are you all settling in?” asked Ford, hands tucked into his pockets. “I see you and Stanley were able to make room for the hammocks.”

“Things are good, Dr. Ford,” Sam answered, raising a thumbs up from his position in the hammock. With a grunt, he raised himself up into a sitting position, feet dangling over the duffel bag of clothes and supplies he had brought.

“Glad to hear it, Sam,” Ford laughed in response.

“Wait a second,” Pacifica interrupted, raising a hand. “If you’re down here, and Stan’s fishing, then who’s driving the boat?”

“The computer is,” grinned Ford, proud of being able to talk about how sophisticated the _Stan o’ War II_ was. “We are far enough away from land that I’ve pointed us in the direction of the Bahamas. The computer will keep us heading in a straight line until we get there. If it detects land, bad weather, or anything unusual in the water, it’ll cut the engines until we can get up there to pilot it manually.”

“Wow,” Dipper replied, shaking his head. “This place is probably more technologically advanced than any of those fancy yachts in Charleston.”

“Well, the autopilot isn’t what makes it valuable,” shrugged Ford. “Until I had figured out the programming, we literally just tied the wheel into place with a rope. It’s all the other tech that makes us the best place for research on the high seas. Speaking of which, are you two ready to get started?”

“Sure!” Sam chirped, launching himself out of his hammock and landing silently on his toes.

“Of course!” Dipper answered at the same time, using his arm to briefly test Pacifica’s hammock for strength before he turned towards the hatch. Pacifica placed her arms in the hammock and leaned forward, briefly lifting herself off the ground to confirm that it held her weight.

“Then let’s get to work,” Ford nodded, spinning on his heels and emerging back onto the deck. “I’ll be in the lab when you’re ready.”

“Grunkle Ford!” said Mabel, closing her suitcase and sprinting over to the base of the stairs. Ford leaned down, silhouetted against the sky. “I was thinking that, if there’s enough room in the lab, maybe I could join you guys?” Pacifica kept a straight face, mentally working through how she was going to have to vault herself into her hammock for bed tonight—she didn’t want to ask Dipper to lift her up into it. Silently, she approved of Mabel’s move to get closer to Sam.

“Oh, Mabel?” Ford answered, confused. “I didn’t think that you’d be interested. But of course you can join us! Maybe you’ll see something that we won’t.” With that, Ford stood back up and entered the lab, with Mabel following close on his heels. Dipper and Sam looked at each other, shrugged, and then joined them, leaving Pacifica alone in the hull.

Alone for the first time in a while, she took a deep breath and swung her arms around her head to reinvigorate herself. The coming days of travel would be difficult, but the prospect of beautiful beaches at the end gave her strength—that, combined with the possibility of quality time with Dipper and the spectacle of Mabel flirting with Sam.

Satisfied that everything in the hull was in order for the night, Pacifica walked past the doors leading to the grunkles’ cabins and up the stairs onto the main deck. She turned to the left and paused outside of the door leading into the lab—that was where everyone else was, and it seemed like the place to be, even if all she could do would be to sit in a corner and stay out of the way. She would follow Dipper to the ends of the earth for a monster hunt, but she had much less experience with the science side of things.

However, before she pushed open the door, she paused and glanced through the nearby window, looking into the lab. Ford and the other teenagers stood in a circle around the teleportation engine. Sam and Mabel were each holding one of the glass spheres that had yet to be affixed to the contraption.

“What have you got so far?” Dipper asked, crossing his arms.

“The main structure of the engine is complete,” Ford announced, walking over to the board that still displayed the heat map of weirdness across the globe. “Everything is fully wired up and ready to handle the power that we send through it. The trick is going to be getting that power into those spheres.” As he spoke, he tapped on the board—the planet went away, and was replaced by a multilayered schematic.

“A problem as in ‘we can’t do it,’ or a problem as in ‘how do we do it’?” Sam asked, carefully passing the spheres back and forth between his hands. Other than a small nub that had been intentionally left on one side, it was immaculate.

“A problem as in ‘I have an idea, but no idea if it’ll work,’” Ford continued, clasping his hands behind his back. “Obviously, to make a functioning teleportation engine, you need to harness the potential and thematic energy of something that is itself capable of teleportation. Now, how many of you are familiar with the concepts of quantum superposition, matter-antimatter annihilation, and the work of Hendrik Casimir?”

Dipper and Sam tentatively raised their hands, while Mabel kept hers firmly planted on the table—her normal enthusiasm was tempered by the possibility of appearing foolish.

“Superposition is the principle that a particle can have multiple qualities that add up perfectly to create an entirely new quality, while each quality remains distinct in itself,” Dipper offered. “Of course, that’s super simplified.”

“And Casimir worked on matter-antimatter theories,” Sam followed up. “Even in a vacuum, energy and matter in the form of quarks can pop into existence before instantly annihilating each other.”

“Exactly!” Ford smiled broadly. “So, here’s what we must figure out—is it possible to capture one of these particles popping into existence in multiple locations at the same time, and then separate them to prevent them from recombining and annihilating?” There was silence for a moment as they thought. Mabel looked between all of their faces, her expression bright amongst the forest of furrowed brows.

“If you’re going to separate something, could you use a magnet?” she said tentatively, simply spitballing a thought into the room.

“These particles aren’t metallic, Mabel,” Dipper immediately chastised her.

“Maybe they don’t have to be,” said Sam breathlessly, walking over to the schematic of the engine and tapping on the icon of a pencil. The board cleared, and he started to scrawl on it with his finger. “Ford, what do you know about Maxwell’s work on gravitomagnetism?”

“Enough,” Ford murmured, tapping his chin as he advanced towards the board.

Pacifica grimaced at their conversation—as much fun as they seemed to be having in the lab, she wasn’t particularly keen on joining them. Her private school education hadn’t been as mathematically minded as Sam’s had been. However, she doubted that Sam could stitch a dyre wound closed if it came down to it.

Now, however, Pacifica needed to find something to do. It was too cloudy to sunbathe, and her phone had long since stopped having a signal—she needed to upgrade to one of the Weslee Mark II’s, but that was something she could bother Ford about at a later date.

Looking away from the lab, Pacifica gazed towards the back of the boat and saw Stan sitting there, reclined in a lounge chair with a fishing pole in his hands, the glimmering line trailing away into the churning water behind the boat. An empty chair sat behind him—it was no doubt usually Ford’s seat, but he was busy at the moment.

Pacifica swallowed and cocked her head to the side as she looked at the back of Stan’s head. Stan had made no secret of his disdain for her, even though he accepted her and Dipper’s relationship. When she had talked about it with Dipper, he had said that Stan’s beef was more with Pacifica’s parents than it was with her individually. Now seemed to present itself as a perfect opportunity to begin to close that gap.

She straightened the ball cap on her head and walked up to the stern of the boat, walking around the outside of the chairs before slowly lowering herself into one, feeling the cloth supports flex under her weight. Stan reacted slowly, imperceptibly turning his head as though to verify that she was in fact voluntarily sitting next to him. He coughed loudly to clear his throat before he began to speak.

“What brought you out here?” Stan commented, teasing his fishing pole from side to side. The thin filament tracing an arc into the water swayed in response.

“I thought I’d come sit with you,” Pacifica shrugged. “They’re talking about nerd stuff in there. Fishing seemed more interesting.”

"Pacifica Northwest came out here to fish,” said Stan, not believing the words escaping his lips. “I thought you had people to do that for you.”

“Not out here, I don’t,” Pacifica answered. “Hand that fishing pole over here and I’ll see if I can hook something.” Stan looked from Pacifica to the spare fishing rod and back again—as far as he could tell, she was being completely earnest.

“You ever fished before, kid?” asked Stan tentatively as he handed her the spare pole. Pacifica grabbed ahold of the handle, holding the rod almost straight out in front of her. She tried to place her other hand on it like a golf club, but found that to be impossible.

“Umm… I’ve _eaten_ fish before,” Pacifica blushed. “But no, I’ve never actually caught anything. Or touched a live fish. Or held a fishing rod.”

“You’ve got a lot to learn then,” Stan replied, reeling in his own pole and leaning it up against the railing. Pacifica felt her stomach turn as she got a good look at the bait—the front half of a small fish, with glistening pink seawater steadily dripping off of it. “Luckily, I am a master fisherman.”

“Mabel showed me that in her scrapbook,” Pacifica offered as Stan turned to the small cooler next to his chair—he must have gotten it out of the kitchen. Gently craning her neck, Pacifica peered into it as Stan opened it. Several small fish identical to the one dangling from Stan’s pole sat within a slushy ice bath. However, Stan drew out the back half of the fish already on his pole and handed it over to Pacifica, who withdrew her hand in fear.

“It’s true,” confirmed Stan as he shook his head. “Come on,” he continued. “How are you going to learn to fish if you can’t even hook the bait? Just be glad this isn’t live.”

“I thought people normally fished with worms,” Pacifica murmured as she reached out with her right hand and delicately pinched the severed tail of the fish, touching as little of it as possible. She set the butt of her pole on the deck and pinched it in between her feet, holding it steady as she grabbed ahold of the shining silver hook.

“In freshwater,” Stan chuckled at her comment. “This far out to sea, a fish wouldn’t know what to do with a worm if it got ahold of one.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Pacifica shuddered, wincing as she pierced the side of the fish half with the thick hook. The barb emerged from the other side and Pacifica quickly let go of the bait, leaving it swaying in the wind at the end of the line.

“Like I said, I’m an expert fisherman,” Stan answered. “Now, you know how to cast, right?”

“Nope,” Pacifica answered, not even trying to keep up appearances. She was the pupil, and Stan was the teacher, and nothing was to be gained by her pretending to know something she didn’t.

“It’s easy,” Stan began, lifting the pole and pointing out the different parts of the open-face reel mechanism. “All you have to do is draw back like this,” he said, arcing the pole up over his shoulder. “And then when you fling it forward, press this button,” he continued, casting the line into the spray as a demonstration. “Let go of the button once the line’s as far out as you like, and then you can reel it back in.”

“Oh, like a Wii Remote!” Pacifica grinned as Stan quickly reeled in the pole and handed it back to Pacifica.

“Like a what?” Stan asked confusedly.

“It’s a video game… computer thing,” Pacifica replied, waving her hand in the air dismissively. There was no point in trying to explain it. Now that she had a point of reference for casting the rod, she was already much more comfortable with it.

Still, as she brought the pole back, she kept an eye on the bait, making sure that the dangerous hook was nowhere near Stan, her own head, or anything dangerous. Stan stepped back in preparation.

Lightly fingering the button, Pacifica whipped the tip of the pole forward with a wicked hiss, the scales on the bait gleaming through the air as it hit the water with a plop, nearly forty feet away from the ship. Pacifica braced her pole against the railing and removed her finger from the button—based on what she knew about fishing, now was when the waiting game began.

“Not a bad cast,” Stan nodded, picking up his own pole and directly dropping the line into the water. The motion of the boat quickly dragged the bait out into the distance, trailing along behind the ship next to Pacifica’s line, though slightly deeper. Stan locked his reel and leaned it up against the railing, holding it in place with his leg.

“Thanks,” Pacifica smiled.

For several minutes, they simply stood there, braced against the railing and feeling the salt spray against their skin as the _Stan o’ War II_ plowed through the water. Despite the fact that there was no land in sight, there was plenty to look at, from the miniature whitecaps in the water to the gray clouds buckling in the sky overhead.

Pacifica blinked in surprise as a raindrop snuck beneath the brim of her baseball cap and landed on her forehead. In the distance, there was a vague rumble of thunder. The weather would hold for several more hours, but a storm was certainly brewing. Pacifica hoped that they were moving quickly enough to outrun it.

“So, what should I call you?” Stan asked, spitting into the water and looking over at Pacifica. She looked back in confusion, though she remained focus on holding the reel steady.

“What do you mean?” she asked, shaking her head. “My name is Pacifica. I’m surprised you didn’t know that,” she followed up with a smirk.

“I know that, Northwest,” Stan laughed back. “I just mean that if you’re really going to be sticking with Dipper, then you need a nickname. ‘Pa-ci-fi-ca’ just has too many syllables. I have a two syllable limit.”

“Why haven’t I gotten a nickname before now?” Pacifica asked. “Dipper and I have been dating for almost a year now, and we’ve been hanging out for much longer than that. It’s kind of weird that I don’t already have one.”

“Well, to be honest,” Stan began, reeling in his pole impatiently and shaking his head, “I wasn’t sold on the fact that you were really serious about him.”

“Dipper?” Pacifica replied, turning to look at him through the window to the lab. Now, Ford was furiously scribbling on a piece of paper while Mabel was working on the touchscreen, with Dipper and Sam watching her. “Why wouldn’t I be serious?”

“It’s nothing against him,” Stan answered as he cast his rod again. “He’s a good kid. All thanks to me, of course.”

“Naturally,” Pacifica replied, her voice flat with sarcasm.

“It was more about you,” Stan shrugged. “I’ve spent time with rich people, and I’ve spent time with your family. Most of them go through a phase where they like ‘lower’ things—they’re the people the Mystery Shack really makes money from. But after they spend enough time or money on those relationships and things, they drift away and leave the stragglers behind.”

“And you thought I would do that,” Pacifica answered, reading between the lines. She thought back to the Christmas Party in the Northwest Manor, where Dipper had told her that he had the exact same fear—she had grown past that block with Dipper, and she was resolved to get through it with Stan as well. “What changed your mind?”

“Well, I first thought that you’d ditch him after the whole shapeshifter thing,” Stan replied. “You looked happy enough on Christmas morning, but I thought for sure that after you spent a few days relaxing back up in the Manor, you’d realize how crazy it all was.”

“But I didn’t,” Pacifica continued, gently teasing her fishing rod in the air to jiggle the bait.

“But you didn’t,” Stan confirmed. “And then, when you voluntarily chose to come on board this little boat and give up your planned vacation… that was a sacrifice. And I respect that.”

“This boat isn’t that bad,” Pacifica shrugged turning around to take it all in. It wasn’t the largest craft, but it was more than enough for everyone on board, and it was currently cutting through the water with power and ease.

“She’s a beauty,” Stan laughed. “But she’s not a yacht. Northwest or Southeast.”

“Well,” Pacifica chuckled, “that’s true too.”

“So we come back to the question,” Stan continued, redirecting the conversation. “What should I call you? Paci doesn’t work—that’s a thing for babies to chew on. Cifa sounds like a bank, and Fica sounds like a plant or a rock. So we have to get creative.”

“How about Paz?” Pacifica offered, ears perking up as she felt the rod shift in her hands. She gripped it more tightly, feeling gingerly for any further movement.

“That’s Dipper’s name for you,” Stan grimaced. “It’d be gross if I used it. How about ‘rich brat’?”

“That’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?” Pacifica laughed, stepping back as she lifted the reel—it was definitely moving now. She anchored her feet and grabbed ahold of the handle, slowly trying to tease the fish forward. Stan, realizing what was happening, quickly pulled in his own rod and placed it on the deck of the boat, stepping over to join Pacifica.

“Maybe ‘blondie,’” Stan offered as he slipped on a pair of gloves and grabbed ahold of the line. He started to pull it in by hand, arm over arm as Pacifica reeled in the slack.

“Sam calls me that,” Pacifica nodded. “Plus I like their music. That could work.”

“Blondie it is, then,” Stan grinned, straining to keep pulling the fish in. “Speaking of which, it feels like you’ve hooked a real winner here, blondie.”

“It’s my first cast,” Pacifica replied, frantically reeling in the loose line. “I couldn’t be this lucky.”

“You were lucky enough to be born a Northwest,” said Stan, dragging the line from side to side. “I don’t see why this should be any different.”

“They’re a little different,” Pacifica fired back.

“Not important,” Stan followed up. “Start reeling in hard now. This thing may be tough, but it isn’t that big. I think it’s about ready to come in.”

Following his instructions, Pacifica anchored the end of the pole against her abdomen and started to put all of her muscle into turning the tiny handle. It moved in fits and jerks, but the resistance slowly grew weaker and weaker. After a couple of minutes, a silvery flash appeared in the foam behind the boat.

“Pull it over here,” instructed Stan, dragging the line to the side of the boat. “That’ll keep the fish clear of the engines.” The gleam in the water grew more distinct as it inched closer to the surface—it was a large fish, just over two and a half feet long. It fought earnestly, but gave up as soon as its head peaked above the water. With a final tug, Pacifica pulled the fish into the air.

“Not bad!” Stan boasted, reaching out to grab the fish and keep it from flailing. He pulled a pair of pliers from his back pocket and quickly clipped the hook in the fish’s lip. “It looks like a king mackerel.”

“Is that good?” Pacifica asked, grimacing as Stan extended the fish to her. She set the pole aside and extended her hand tentatively, unsure of what to expect.

“Any fish is good,” cheered Stan as he passed the fish to Pacifica. “Make sure you don’t grab onto the fins. They can be sharp.”

The sensation of the scales against her skin was unusual—she had been expecting them to be rough and thick, but they were as delicate as gold foil, even seeming to flake off under her smooth fingers. The weight of the fish also caught her off guard—it was clearly an impressive catch. However, she wasn’t sure what was more surprising—the fact that she had managed to hook the fish, or the fact that Stan was smiling at something she had done.

“So… do we throw it back in the water now?” Pacifica asked, a small yelp escaping her lips as the fish flailed within her grasp. She tightened her fingers, holding it in place.

“A beauty like this?” Stan asked with disbelief. “No, we’re going to eat it. We don’t usually get food this nice out here.”

“I was afraid of that,” mumbled Pacifica, looking at the fish with pity.

“I thought you were training to be a fry cook or a chef or something,” Stan commented as he took the fish from Pacifica and walked into the kitchen. Pacifica followed him tentatively. “Don’t you fancy types use fresh fish and all that?”

“Yeah, but I’m not the one who cleans them!” Pacifica defended, taking deep breaths to calm her stomach. Stan laid a towel out on the counter and placed the fish on it before reaching into a drawer and pulling out a small knife with a thick blade. Pacifica could hear the others talking in the laboratory next door, but couldn’t make out what they were saying over the pounding of the blood in her ears.

“It’s not that hard, blondie,” Stan answered, placing the fish on its belly. Its gills pulsed weakly, and its tail flapped one last time. “If your dad never bothered to teach you stuff like this, then I’m going to.”

With that, Stan placed the tip of the knife at the very top of the fish’s head—with a single smooth movement, he crushed the bone of the skull and slid the knife into the brain. Instantly, the fish stopped moving—the head would stay on until it was cleaned, but now it was well and truly dead. Stan then flipped the fish over and offered Pacifica the knife.

“What am I supposed to do with that?” Pacifica asked, not wanting to touch it.

“I’ll show you,” Stan replied softly, his eyes shining. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve done this hundreds of times. You won’t get hurt. And, at this point, the fish ain’t hurtin’ either.”

Pacifica looked from Stan to the fish, and back again. She had never done anything like this before—she had never had to, even at Greasy’s. It was entirely outside her realm of experience. But, Stan seemed to know what he was doing, and there was a kindness to him that Pacifica had never felt before—she had seen him show it towards the twins, but never to her.

“Okay,” she breathed, shaking her head. She then reached out to the counter and pulled on a pair of the plastic gloves that sat there—just because she was going to clean the fish didn’t mean that she had to soil her skin. Stan’s rough hands could touch the fish all they liked, but she wasn’t about to join in. “Show me what to do,” she followed up, taking the knife from him.

“The most important thing is to be gentle,” Stan cautioned, pointing towards the rear of the fish. “It’s easy to clean if you do it right, but if you go too deep, you’ll wind up with fish juice all over the place.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Pacifica commented snidely, earning a chuckle from Stan. She then slipped the knife into the belly of the fish, surprised at how easy it went through.

“Now slide it all the way up to the gills,” Stan pointed, holding the fish steady as Pacifica made the cut. Her private school training with sketching had at least given her steady hands, as the knife glided through the skin with a satisfying curve.

“How was that?” Pacifica asked, breathless as she removed the knife and set it on the counter. She grabbed onto the metal pole that supported the nearby oven, using it to keep her footing. The sensation of slicing into the stomach of the fish had very nearly been overwhelming, and the burst of salt and bile that assaulted her nostrils wasn’t helping.

“Good!” Stan cheered, digging his fingers into the cut and splaying open the fish open, exposing the sickly white and purple of its intestines. “Now for the worst part.”

“What am I supposed to do now?!” Pacifica asked, panicked and disgusted as she turned away from the counter. She breathed heavily, tempted to run outside for some fresh air. She counted her pulse to ground herself—an easy task, given how powerfully she could feel her heart beating in her temples.

“Slide your fingers in between the guts and the meat on the outside,” Stan pointed out. “Grip it tightly, and then pull down and out. All of the nasty stuff should come out in a single motion.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Pacifica mumbled to herself, spinning around the kitchen in an effort to calm herself down. Stan shook his head at her, but his expression bore nothing but heartfelt concern. Pacifica lifted her hands to her face to cover her mouth and nose, but quickly withdrew after realizing that she was still wearing gloves covered with fish residue. “I’ve got this.”

“Are you sure?” Stan asked gingerly. “I can do it if I need to.”

“No,” announced Pacifica, turning and striding up to the fish. With an energy that only comes from impulse, she plunged her fingers into the fish with a sickening squelch. Stan briefly shuddered, but held on admirably.

Pacifica then wrapped her thumb around the intestines of the fish and pulled—with a single pop, they started to slide out onto the counter. When they were almost free, they got caught on an unsevered piece of skin and Pacifica faltered, afraid that she would have to repeat the process—however, before she could blink, Stan was there with the knife, severing the final bit of connection and leaving the intestines to fall out onto the counter.

Pacifica instantly turned around and removed her gloves, careful not to touch any of the substances on her hands. She tossed the gloves into a trash can and placed her hands on her knees, taking deep shuddering breaths as she waddled over to the table in the center of the room and took a seat.

“Not bad, Northwest,” Stan grinned, looking at the fish. Pacifica stared at the wall as he flipped the fish over onto its side and pulled out a much larger knife. With an easy expertise, he sliced away the fins and tail, and severed the head with a single smooth chop. “The first one is always the roughest.”

“Th-th-thanks for showing me that,” Pacifica mumbled, exhaling loudly through her mouth. She heard running water as Stan doused the fillets, cleaning away any remnants of the sea or the organs. “I know a lot more now than I did when I woke up this morning.”

“All I did was tell you what to do,” Stan beamed. “You’re the one who actually did everything.”

Pacifica sat in silence for a moment, processing, before she stood up. She turned, and walked unsteadily on her feet back over to the counter. Where a whole fish had once been now sat two large, beautiful fillets—they would have been right at home in a fancy restaurant. The intestines and trimmings still sitting in a pile to the right were more out of place.

“I’m proud of you, kid,” Stan chuckled, slapping Pacifica on the shoulder and causing her to lurch forward before she was able to catch herself. An uncertain smile broke out on Pacifica’s face as she looked from Stan down to the counter, and back again.

“Thanks, Mr. Pines,” Pacifica replied with a swallow, more confident now. Her training at Greasy’s took over, and she patted the fillets dry with a nearby paper towel. They would need to be refrigerated until it was time for dinner—if there had been a well on board, the fish would have been kept alive until then. Pacifica may not have had any practical experience with preparing fish, but she knew that it was better as fresh as possible.

“Call me Stan, blondie,” he answered, wrapping up the inedible bits of the fish in the towel he had laid on the counter. He bundled it up, preparing to throw the entrails overboard. “Just don’t let it go to your head. You cleaned the fish well enough, but let’s see how you cook it.”


	13. Storm

A thunderous crash echoed through the hold of the _Stan o’ War II_ as the hull slammed into the water, reverberating like a bell. Immediately, the boat rose into the air on the crest of an even larger wave, before falling and leaving Pacifica’s stomach in her throat.

Pacifica’s eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling as she gripped the sides of her hammock with white-knuckled fear. The storm that she and Stan had heard in the distance had grown in speed and intensity, sending rippling sheets of rain drumming against the ship. To avoid capsizing, they had to face directly into the waves—which only made the sensation of rising and falling more powerful. It was far worse than any turbulence she had ever flown through.

It was just after midnight, and everyone had gone to bed except for Dipper and Ford, who had stayed on the main deck as they continued their work in the lab. When Pacifica had first lowered herself into her hammock, she was convinced that she would never be able to sleep in it—the sides pinched her arms in too tightly, she was unable to turn over onto her side, and the pillow she had improvised with a bundle of her loose clothes and a couple skeins of Mabel’s yarn was ill-formed and lumpy.

However, the gentle rocking of the ship in the waves and the steady thrum of the engines had been strangely soothing, and she had soon drifted off. She didn’t normally have vivid dreams, but something about the motion had activated her brain—she couldn’t recall what any of her dreams were, now that she was awake, but she knew that they had been incredibly vivid.

She had slept in silence for about an hour, with Sam and Mabel gently snoring in their individual hammocks on the other side of the ship. Her eyes had initially fluttered open at the quiet pounding of the rain on the deck above her, but she had managed to catch a few more minutes of sleep after that—after all, some rain had been expected. Once the waves started to become rougher, however, there was no returning to dreamland.

Almost immediately upon the sea growing more violent, Stan’s door had creaked open and he had emerged onto the deck in full rain gear—the years at sea had given him an instinct for such things. He had to open the hatch to exit the hull, and in doing so a small amount of rainwater was let in on the top step. Pacifica had spent the last fifteen minutes watching this water drip down the stairs in the dim night lighting of the ship, wondering if she should go up to help.

A quick glance over to the other side of the hold revealed that both Mabel and Sam were still snoozing soundly. They were both very deep sleepers, and it would have taken a proper hurricane in order to wake them. Pacifica marveled at how easily they were able to drop out the world, even when so much activity was going on. She and Dipper were much jumpier—there had been several times where they had woken up in the night together for seemingly no reason at all.

Pacifica closed her eyes one more time, just in case the storm suddenly decided to abate. It was then that a tremendous, echoing peal of thunder charged from the sky, rumbling within both Pacifica’s ribs and the steel ribs of the ship. Her eyes flashed open in anger. How was she expected to rest in such conditions?

With a quiet grunt, she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the hammock, using the ropes to steady herself. Gingerly feeling out with her foot, she made contact with the top of her suitcase. Resting more of her weight on it, she spun around and stepped down to the floorboards.

For a moment, she had her knees locked as she stood up perfectly straight. When the ship charged headlong into another wave, she was almost knocked to the ground and had to grab her hammock to steady herself. She was still trying to get her sea legs on such a small craft—she flexed her legs, letting herself sway more easily with the motion of the sea. Turning her head fearfully, she readjusted her glasses as she looked at Sam and Mabel—they hadn’t budged.

Pacifica shook her head in disbelief as she opened her suitcase and pulled out a large waterproof coat with a hood. She had been prepared for Carolina summer thunderstorms, which could be furious—the coat would work out on the water as well. She hadn’t changed into pajamas, opting instead to sleep in a burgundy long-sleeved fleece shirt, a pair of black leggings, and colorful socks. Donning her coat and slipping on her leather boots, she spun to the left and tiptoed up the stairs. She tried to make as little noise as possible to avoid disturbing Mabel and Sam—though if a storm of this size couldn’t wake them, it was unlikely her footsteps would.

As she approached the hatch, the noise of the rain outside became much louder, pounding the deck of the boat like a drum. Narrowing her eyes to keep water from splashing into them, even though the lenses of her glasses would have protected her, she grabbed the handle of the hatch and opened it, peeking out onto the deck as though from within a bunker.

The scene outside was strangely well-illuminated—the clouds rolled away into the blackness of the horizon, but she could see in crystalline detail the edges of the deck, and the rippling sheets of rain that tore across it. A thin layer of water rushed across the metal, coursing towards the outlets at the railing.

It was strangely beautiful—she would have stayed and watched it for a few moments longer, but realized that keeping the hatch open was letting even more water into the hold. She quickly bundled her hood up around her face and stepped into the storm, closing the hatch behind her with a muted bang.

She turned towards the kitchen, but was unable to keep herself from looking up, rainwater splashing on her glasses. It was now obvious why she had been able to see so well—there was a large omnidirectional spotlight mounted to the mast of the _Stan o’ War II,_ and it cast the entire ship in a bright fluorescent glow. Her skin felt softer when she looked at it.

The light allowed her to look up to the top level of the cabin, where the wheel was. The protective glass shutters had been pulled up around it, and both of the Stans stood inside. Stan had his hands on the wheel, making minute adjustments to the course of the ship as they plowed forward. Ford, standing next to him, was looking at the instrument panel and calling out directions to Stan, his voice barely audible over the storm.

Looking up, Pacifica saw both of them brace, and then felt the ship start to rise back up on the crest of a wave. As frightening as it was, she was glad that she hadn’t been able to see it coming.

As the boat began to plunge back into the trough of the water, the sky was lit up as though it was day, and a searing heat flashed across Pacifica’s skin. She covered her ears and yelped as, not a moment later, a splitting pulse of thunder echoed through the air—a bolt of lightning had struck the mast of the ship. The lightbulb in the floodlight popped, plunging the deck of the ship into darkness. Lurching to the side, Pacifica pushed her way into the safety of the kitchen.

Dipper’s head perked up as she entered the room, dripping water. She immediately shed her coat, throwing it onto the kitchen table to drip dry, and shaking her head to fan her hair out. Dipper reached up and removed a pair of earplugs.

“Hey,” Dipper said nonchalantly, waving as Pacifica got her bearings. Dipper had pulled a stool over to the window, and was leaning against the refrigerator as he propped his feet up on a trash can. He had been looking out of the window, watching the raindrops race down the glass as the storm raged outside. He dropped his feet to the ground as Pacifica entered.

“What the heck?” Pacifica asked as she walked over to him. She reached out and removed his baseball cap, tossing it over onto her coat. His chocolate hair exposed, she wrapped her arms around his torso and rested her chin on the top of his head, both of them looking out into the darkness. Strangely, it seemed calmer up here than it did down below. Pacifica wasn’t sure if that was because Dipper was up here, the yellow incandescent lighting was warmer, the hull wasn’t acting like an echo chamber for all of the vibrations, or if simply being able to see the storm helped her to understand it. She didn’t much care what the answer was. She breathed deeply, burying her nose in Dipper’s hair.

“What do you mean, ‘what the heck’?” Dipper chuckled, gently holding onto Pacifica’s forearm. “It’s a storm. That’s all there is to it.”

“Yeah, I know it’s a storm, dipstick,” Pacifica retorted playfully, bonking her chin into Dipper’s scalp. “Why are we in it? I thought that the boat was supposed to tell Ford when we were heading towards bad weather so we could avoid it.”

“Oh, that,” Dipper answered coyly, as though he hadn’t known what she was asking. “It did let us know what was going on. But we decided that it might be better to go through the storm.”

“And you guys just decided to steer us into it without letting anyone else on the boat know?” Pacifica commented. “It scared me half to death.”

“Sorry,” Dipper apologized, lifting one of her hands up to his lips and kissing it. Pacifica smirked at the roughness of his lips—he had been trying to use lip balm, for her, but wasn’t very good about it. The salt in the air wasn’t helping. “It was kind of a last minute decision for the teleportation engine. We needed a lot of power, and this seemed like the easiest way to get it.”

“How exactly are you supposed to get power from the storm?” Pacifica whispered, even though there was no one else in the room. “All the energy’s up in the clouds. Unless you have some kind of secret turbine under the ship I don’t know about.”

“No, Ford hasn’t had a chance to add that yet,” Dipper chuckled. At that moment, another burst of lightning flashed through the sky, allowing them to see to the horizon for a brief moment—the sea was a forest of waves and pulsing rain, stretching to infinity, a silver sea reflecting the black sky and gray clouds.

Instinctively, they both clasped their hands over their ears as another peal of thunder rang out. After the echo faded away, a slight buzzing could be heard from the lab next door.

Dipper turned to look up at Pacifica with a sheepish grin, who was now no longer holding him in place. Pacifica, realizing what was happening, lowered her eyelids in a scowl.

“You intentionally steered us into a hurricane to get the boat struck by lightning?” Pacifica asked, though she already knew the answer.

“Okay,” Dipper began answering, holding up a finger. “I recognize that tone of displeasure, but I’m going to say that you’re technically wrong for two reasons.”

“I’m intrigued to hear them,” Pacifica fired back sternly. As dire as the exchange would have sounded to an untrained ear, Pacifica and Dipper had long since fallen into an easy rhythm in speaking to each other—they trusted each other. And, it was occasionally fun to play up their old dynamic of the snooty blond and the nerd—in many contexts.

“First, I’m not the one who steered us into the storm,” Dipper continued, pointing at himself. “That was all Ford. I just didn’t say no when he suggested it.”

“All I’m hearing is that you don’t know how to drive a boat,” Pacifica commented, placing a hand on Dipper’s shoulder.

“And, and, _technically,”_ Dipper rolled on, “this isn’t a hurricane. It’s a tropical depression.”

“You’re going to give me tropical depression with how much of a dork you are,” Pacifica smirked, leaning over to kiss the top of Dipper’s forehead. She yelped slightly as she felt Dipper grab her around the waist and spin her around, sitting down on his lap.

“At least it’s tropical,” he laughed, reaching up to kiss her on the cheek. “The point is, we’re perfectly safe. Ford and Stan both agreed on doing this. They wouldn’t take us somewhere dangerous, especially with two of their favorite people on board.”

“Me and Sam?” Pacifica asked innocently.

“Of course!” Dipper replied, his tone perfectly sincere. “Who else would it be?”

“I have no idea,” Pacifica responded, exhaling as she leaned up against Dipper’s torso.

His head was resting against her neck as they both looked out of the window. She could see both of their reflections in the glass, looking at each other as much as at the weather outside. Dipper squeezed her tighter as the boat rose up on another wave, before crashing back to the sea. In the distance, more lightning flashed, though it was too far away for the metal of the mast to attract it.

“Do you want me to show you what we did to the engine?” Dipper offered, cocking his head to the side. Pacifica felt Dipper shift beneath her as he prepared to stand up, prompting her to place a finger on his chest and push him back down into the chair.

“Not yet, science boy,” Pacifica replied, wrapping her arms around his neck. “This is too nice. We haven’t had a chance to really be alone in a while.”

“I still don’t think this technically counts as being alone,” Dipper commented, though he settled back into his seat with no complaints—there were worse places to be than watching the ocean with his girlfriend on his lap. “I mean, we’ve got Stans above us and Sam and Mabel below us.”

“It’s more alone than we’ve been,” Pacifica answered. “I don’t count that one night at the Estate, since the walls were so thin. Now, though—the Stans aren’t going anywhere with the weather as bad as it is, and it would take an actual hurricane to wake Sam and Mabel.”

“I’ve never understood how she’s able to sleep so easily,” said Dipper, shaking his head. “She’ll go to bed late and wake up early, but when she’s out, she’s really out.”

“She must have absorbed all of your melatonin in the womb,” Pacifica smirked.

“Gross,” Dipper chuckled, looking from the ocean to Pacifica.

His right hand rested on Pacifica’s leg, while his left ventured over to her hair. Gently taking some strands into his fingers, he started to slowly stroke her hair, wrapping it around his fingers before pulling his hand loose. Pacifica closed her eyes, enjoying the slight tugging sensation that made its way up to her scalp. It was nowhere near as powerful as having his fingers scraping against her skin directly, but Dipper was unfortunately right—they weren’t anywhere near as alone as they would have preferred.

Pacifica picked up Dipper’s right hand with her left. She started to delicately feel the wrinkles, callouses, and crevasses on his palm and between his fingers. Even the crinkling around his knuckles seemed simultaneously strong and delicate. She could feel the tendons and muscles flexing beneath his skin, radiating warmth. A frown crossed her face as she looked at his nails—other than a minor hangnail, they were immaculate. It wasn’t fair that his were in such good condition, considering how much more effort Pacifica put into hers.

“Other than the storm,” Dipper began, drawing her attention, “what do you think of the boat so far?” Pacifica ran her tongue along the inside of her teeth as she contemplated her answer.

“I like it,” she finally replied, nodding her head. “It’s quaint.”

“Quaint?” Dipper smiled. “Is that all you have to say about it?”

“What?” Pacifica answered defensively. “It’s definitely not the biggest boat I’ve been on. Compared to some of the yacht parties that I’ve been to, this just isn’t that impressive.”

“It’s not the size of it,” Dipper chuckled, gently bouncing his leg and Pacifica along with it. “It’s what it can do.” Pacifica cut him a glaring look—it was a very low effort joke.

“Fine,” she shrugged. “There’s actually a lot of cool stuff here. The lab, for instance—no other boat in the world has that. If I had to pick a boat to live on, this wouldn’t be a bad one. Even though it doesn’t have a Jacuzzi. Or water skis. Or a helipad. Or a theater. Or a proper dining room. Or champagne. Or private bedrooms. Or a functioning bathroom. Or—”

“Okay, okay,” Dipper interrupted, shaking his head. “You have a point. It’s not the greatest in the world, but it’s enough to live on. For the Stans, at least.”

“Of course it’s enough for them!” Pacifica replied, briefly throwing her hands in the air. “They grew up in the 70s. They didn’t even have electricity back then.”

“You know that’s not true, right?” Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, Dipper,” Pacifica scoffed. “I just like saying incorrect things because it annoys you.”

“It does do that,” Dipper confirmed, nodding.

“Speaking of things that bother you,” Pacifica continued, checking her nails before returning to focus on Dipper. “What did you think of dinner tonight?” She remained intensely focused on his hands, as he continued to play with her hair.

“I liked it,” Dipper answered after a moment of silence. “It was rustic.”

“Ha-ha,” Pacifica responded, rolling her eyes. “Is that all you’ve got to say about it?”

“No, no,” Dipper chuckled. He had been unable to resist giving her a taste of her own medicine. “It was really good. The fish was perfectly cooked, the rice was tender, and the fact that you caught it and cooked it only makes it better.”

“It could have been better,” Pacifica mumbled, blushing. “If they had chicken stock on board, I could have made risotto. Risotto’s better with fattier fish, like salmon, but it would have worked tonight too.”

“Yeah, but I don’t hold that against you,” Dipper smiled. His hand slipped through her hair and reached her back, which he started to rub gently. Pacifica was unable to keep herself from straightening up in surprise, though she soon relaxed again. “You can always do more with more ingredients. But, you made something good with what you had, which is impressive given how few ingredients the Stans normally keep on board.”

“How could they not have cooking wine, Dipper?” Pacifica asked plaintively, leaning back into his hand. “It makes everything taste so much better.”

“I don’t think they really care about taste,” Dipper laughed. “They mostly just want enough calories. But all that means is that when they do get the chance to taste something good, they really chow down. Like they did tonight.”

“I wouldn’t have expected Ford to eat that fast,” Pacifica grinned, thinking back to dinner. Sam and Mabel had initially been hesitant of the fish, but Stan and Ford didn’t think twice about it. Eventually, once the other teenagers had taken tentative bites, they ate gladly.

“You learn to eat fast when you’re trying to survive in another dimension,” Dipper shrugged. “It seemed like everyone really liked what you cooked. Even Mabel ate most of it, and she doesn’t usually like fish.”

“What?” Pacifica asked in surprise. “Since when does Mabel not like fish? She had no problem eating those tacos when we were at the Crazy Sun Salmon Hut in Yachats.”

“Luna Sea Fish House,” Dipper smiled. Pacifica smirked in response. “And that was only because she was distracted by Hudson. She normally thinks that fish are too cute to eat.”

“Fish are objectively some of the ugliest creatures on the planet,” Pacifica said, shaking her head. “I’m glad to hear I was able to get her to overcome that, though.”

“You’ve got a good read on Mabel these days,” Dipper nodded. “I’m happy to see how close you two are getting. She goes to you for help a lot now—even more than me.”

“Does that upset you?” Pacifica asked tenderly, noticing Dipper’s downcast and disheartened expression as he said that.

“No, not at all!” he answered, perking up, though a slight hint of sorrow remained in his eyes. “She’s never had a sister before, and there are things you two can talk about that I just can’t. You know things I don’t. There’s nothing I can do about that.” Dipper squeezed Pacifica more tightly.

“Are you sure?” Pacifica whispered. “I can hint to Mabel that she ought to spend more time with you, if you like.”

“It’s fine,” Dipper answered, sniffling as he shook his head. “I know that I’m the one mostly responsible for it, with how much time I spend with you. This was always inevitable—heck, I’m the one who wanted to grow further apart that first summer. But now that it’s actually happening, it feels… different than I expected.”

“Like you’re losing something,” Pacifica nodded, wrapping her arms around Dipper’s head and pulling him to her chest. “Now you know how Mabel felt.” She thought back to her own time with her parents, when she had first met the Pines—every time they left for Piedmont, it felt like someone had pulled in a life preserver while she was drowning.

“I don’t like it,” Dipper replied through a shaky smile.

“No one does,” Pacifica shrugged. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re not losing her. It may seem like it, but you’re not. You’re still going to be her brother, she’s still going to be your sister, and together you’re still going to be the Mystery Twins.”

“I know…” Dipper admitted. “Maybe it’s just that, as her brother, I don’t like the idea of her going somewhere I can’t protect her.”

“Usually she’s the one protecting you,” Pacifica replied, brushing a lock of Dipper’s hair behind his ear. “And she has to go eventually. Just like you did for her.”

“Huh?” Dipper asked, raising his head. He wasn’t crying, but his eyes were noticeably red. “I didn’t leave her. I chose not to.”

“Not that first summer,” Pacifica continued. “When you and I started dating. She lost part of you that day to me. She gave it up willingly, and I’m so glad she did.”

“Mabel wanted us to start dating,” Dipper laughed weakly. “She knew what she was getting into.”

“She did,” nodded Pacifica. “And she wanted it anyway. And think about how much happier you are now that you have me. At least, I hope you’re happy.” Dipper nodded in confirmation, and Pacifica sighed in relief—his answer had never been in question, but it was nice to hear. “You should want the same thing for her, even if it means letting part of her go.”

“Are you talking about relationships or about life in general?” Dipper wondered aloud.

“Both,” Pacifica confirmed. “We’re going into our senior year of high school, so college plans are going to have to be made. But, for now, the more immediate thing you need to think about is relationships.”

“Part of me really hates Sam,” Dipper answered, turning to look out of the window. Pacifica felt his grip on her back tighten slightly. “Even though I know there’s no reason for me to.”

“He can be annoying,” Pacifica smiled. “But he’s a good guy. I wouldn’t have even let Mabel have a crush on him if he wasn’t.”

“I know,” Dipper sighed. “There’s nothing I can hold against the guy. Every conflict we’ve ever had was a misunderstanding. I want to be happy for them.”

“Wait until Mabel reels him in first,” said Pacifica, tapping on Dipper’s shoulder. “Even then, it won’t come easily. You’ll have to grow into that happiness with time.”

“How do you know all of this?” Dipper asked, craning his neck to look up at Pacifica as another bolt of lightning flashed outside, this one closer. “Surely they don’t teach all of this in private school.”

“Who do you think Mabel talks to when she feels like you feel now?” Pacifica answered. “We talk without you, you know.”

“I thought she would have gone to Candy or Grenda,” Dipper shrugged.

“Grenda lacks emotional subtlety,” Pacifica laughed. “Her methods don’t work for Mabel. Candy’s a little bit better, but her own experiences with relationships haven’t been as… long-lasting as ours.”

“So how much do I owe you for the therapy session?” Dipper asked, taking a deep breath. It was obvious now that he was feeling better—Pacifica was glad that she had come up to the deck. It was better to talk to your thoughts with someone you trusted and loved than merely thinking about them, sitting alone in the rain.

“The starting rate is fifty dollars an hour,” Pacifica responded, perfectly serious as she lowered her glasses down to the bridge of her nose. “If you pay for six months in advance, it goes down to forty-nine.”

“How about we make a trade instead?” smirked Dipper, sitting up and drawing his face up against Pacifica’s neck. She felt her heart thrill as his hand on her back gently slipped beneath her shirt, her back arching at his touch. He didn’t venture too high, or too low, but the contact was enough to quicken her breathing.

“Deal,” Pacifica laughed, wrapping him back up in a hug—they were a pretzel of entangled limbs as she sat on his lap. “But I’ll give you a loan for now, and you can pay it back later. Once we’re really alone.” With that, she bent down and kissed his forehead.

“I’m starting to think we should have booked a private stateroom,” Dipper grinned.

“Hey, we can steal Stan’s room if you’d like,” Pacifica offered. She broke out into a cackle at the crinkle of disgust on Dipper’s face.

“I’ll wait,” Dipper replied, shaking his head.

Another flash of lightning, closer still to the boat, illuminated the sky. The rumble of the thunder was loud enough that both of them covered their ears. Even though there was no reason, Pacifica found herself closing her eyes—when she opened them, Dipper was looking at her with a pleading expression. She rolled her eyes, already knowing what he was about to ask.

“Can I show you the engine now?” Dipper asked bouncingly, though he was also perfectly content to spend more time in Pacifica’s arms.

“Fine,” Pacifica consented grumblingly as she stood up, making sure to flex her knees to keep her balance. Dipper had held his enthusiasm admirably. “But this better be a cool toy.”

“I promise that it is!” Dipper beamed as he leapt to his feet. He paused for a moment and braced himself against the refrigerator—his blood needed a moment to catch up with his brain. Shaking his head, he got his bearings and took Pacifica’s hand, leading her into the laboratory. 

They both blinked as they entered the lab—unlike the bright kitchen, it was only dimly lit, instead relying on the blue and red lights scattered across various computers for illumination. The interactive board was still on, with half of it taken up by a lengthy equation with almost no numbers. The other half was a schematic of the engine, complete with scrawling in Dipper, Ford, and Sam’s handwriting. Mabel had done the illustration.

“You’ve been busy,” Pacifica praised as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The outline of the engine was markedly different than it had been before, with additional structures around it and cables running away from it.

"Keep a safe distance,” Dipper warned as another blast of thunder, this one closer still, shook the ship. Slowly, Pacifica paced around the engine, memorizing the modifications.

The glass orbs were now in place, though they weren’t yet attached to the engine—instead, they were held in place by a metallic arm tipped with a claw-like appendage, the digits capped with foam pads. The tiny nubs that had been on each of the orbs had been broken off, creating a small hole that wires were running through. Inside each of the orbs, at the end of the wires, were two tiny metallic spheres, each protected by a metal cage and held several inches apart.

Bending more closely, Pacifica saw that the metallic spheres were spinning incredibly quickly within their individual cages. Pale lights were beginning to emanate from them, each glass orb a multicolored swirl of orange and blue. She thought back to the original engine, in which each orb was one solid color.

Next to the engine was a small box with copper coils on the top. There was a small screen on the box, with a perfectly flat line blinking horizontally across it. A thick cable ran from the back of the box to the outside of the ship, likely connecting with the mast. From the front of the box, however, ran four smaller cables, which attached to the metallic spheres within the glass orbs.

Suddenly, Pacifica felt a hand on her shoulder as her hair stood on end. Dipper pulled her back from the engine and wrapped his arms around her. Both of them clasped their hands over their ears as another bolt of lightning tore from the sky and contacted the mast.

Pacifica had expected the surge of electricity coursing through the cable to be visible, but there was no external sign whatsoever that anything had changed. Once the electricity reached the box next to the engine, however, something began to happen.

The copper coils glowed a pale blue as the horizontal line on the screen became jagged and disorganized. Over the course of three seconds, that line slowly became more and more modulated, until it was a perfect sine wave. Then, the coils discharged their power into the four smaller cables that connected with the engine. The metallic spheres within the glass orbs shook slightly, and began to glow brighter.

“What just happened?” Pacifica asked, astonished. As crazy as it sounded, the _Stan o’ War II_ was successfully harnessing the energy from lightning to charge a teleportation engine.

“It’s theoretically complicated,” Dipper beamed, walking over to the engine. “But practically, not so much.”

“That’s lucky,” said Pacifica as Dipper nodded in confirmation.

“It is,” he grinned. “Essentially, the lightning is being transformed in the smaller box into a tamer, more useful form. Then, the mechanism is using the electricity to spin those tiny neodymium spheres, creating an even more powerful electromagnet. Eventually, the strength of the electromagnetic will overcome the rotational velocity, forcing the spheres into an even tinier space, until their gravity starts to increase dramatically.”

“Are you trying to make a black hole?” Pacifica asked in a panic. “Wouldn’t that literally consume the earth?”

“Not at this size,” answered Dipper, shaking his head. “It would decay through Hawking radiation too quickly. But we don’t need it to be big, and we don’t need it for long. We just need it to pull some particles apart.”

“Good,” Pacifica replied, calming her breathing. “I kind of like this planet.”

“So do I,” Dipper acknowledged before continuing his lecture. “Once that critical mass is reached, the charges within the glass orbs are going to be unbearable—they’re going to have to dissipate. However, because this is happening in both orbs at the same time, what we’re going to see is that the extreme situations within each of them are identical. So identical, in fact, that they _are_ each other.”

“Naturally,” Pacifica nodded, not understanding anything.

“The negative charge in one orb is going to want nothing more than to become the negative charge in the other orb. Same goes for positive. And, when we finally release the electromagnetic constraints holding this situation in place, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. The orbs will be permanently affixed to the engine by the relatively slight amount of energy lost in the transfer. Once the charges are segregated, the central bolt will slam into place before purely magnetic forces take over, and we’ll have a functional teleportation engine.”

“Well,” Pacifica shrugged, “that makes perfect sense. I understood all of that, and I’m sure it’s theoretically sound. Since I’m the smartest person alive, it must be true.”

“You’re not even the smartest person on this boat,” Dipper laughed as he walked over to her, taking her hands in his. He knew full well that what he just said sounded like nonsense—even he didn’t fully comprehend it.

“You got me,” Pacifica whined mockingly. “It’s Mabel.”

“Obviously,” Dipper nodded before pulling Pacifica into a kiss. It wasn’t quite as romantic as Seattle or a big warm bed, but the chaos outside combined with the serene illumination within the lab certainly created an atmosphere.

“I really hate that there’s no two-person hammocks on this rig,” Pacifica grumbled, bowing her forehead to rest against Dipper’s chin.

“I’m sure we can ask Mabel to make us one,” Dipper joked.

“Let’s not distract her from her mission with Sam,” Pacifica said as thunder rumbled above the ship.

“Fair enough,” sighed Dipper, stepping away from Pacifica and leading her back towards the kitchen. “Still, with a hammock or without, I don’t think either of us are going to be getting much sleep.”

“Yeah,” Pacifica answered, rubbing her eyes. She was undeniably exhausted, but sleep was impossible. “Which sucks. I’ll need to catch up on some rest once we get out of this storm.”

“Agreed,” Dipper nodded.

Then, instead of a rumble of thunder, the rumble of Pacifica’s stomach echoed through the cabin. She crossed her arms over herself, embarrassed as Dipper broke out into a laugh. Pacifica shot him a withering glare, but Dipper was too tickled to yield to it.

“How about a midnight snack?” he offered, gesturing towards the kitchen. “I think I saw a box of Little Debbie cakes Stan tucked into the back of the cabinet.” Pacifica’s stomach grumbled again, as though to answer in the affirmative.

“Are you going to tell anyone about it?” Pacifica asked. She thought back to that morning with Mabel, when she had given a lesson on being comfortable in your body—there were some things that it was easier for Pacifica to preach than to practice, some habits that proved much harder to burn out.

“Never,” Dipper swore, raising his right hand before miming zipping his lips and throwing away the key.

“Then of course I want a cake!” Pacifica answered with a smirk, striding into the kitchen and grabbing Dipper’s hand. He had promised a snack, and now he had to deliver. “I hope they’re chocolate.”


	14. Engine

Sunlight streamed into the hold as Pacifica opened the hatch, stepping out onto the deck. She took a deep breath as her eyes adjusted to the light, savoring the smells of the sea. Unlike in the forests of Oregon, where rain would stain the air with the scent of petrichor coming off of the leaves, the rain this far out at sea only left the air feeling crisp and clean.

A couple of hours after her conversation with Dipper the night prior, the _Stan o’ War II_ had successfully navigated out of the storm and into calmer waters. Ford and Stan had come down into the cabin to ensure that everything was still in order, though both of them were yawning and had clearly visible bags under their eyes.

Ford and Dipper immediately retreated into the lab, now almost completely illuminated by the vibrant blend of blue and orange light pouring from the engine, to ensure that they had collected enough power. They chose not to do the final energy transfer right then, instead saving it for the next morning when Sam could join them, and they had the advantage of daylight.

Stan had walked into the kitchen cracking his knuckles, where Pacifica was gathering up her coat and Dipper’s hat. He immediately reached for his secret stash of Little Debbie cakes, and cast Pacifica a suspicious glance when he had to reach farther into the box than he remembered to find one. She kept her face turned away from him, unable to keep a slight smile off of her face.

After the Stans had placed the ship into autopilot, and were satisfied with the state of things in the main cabin, they retreated into their individual rooms belowdecks. Several minutes later, Dipper and Pacifica joined them, walking hand in hand back down into the hull. Sam and Mabel were still unconscious, and didn’t appear to have budged—though Mabel’s hands were twitching slightly, sleep-knitting.

Moving as deliberately and as quietly as possible, Dipper helped Pacifica slide into her hammock before walking further towards the bow and vaulting into his. Now, they had no difficulty going to sleep. The calm rocking of the ship, combined with genuine exhaustion and their warmth towards each other, was irresistible.

Pacifica had then only woken up once, when Sam and Mabel had gotten up. Having slept through the storm, they actually got up at a decent hour. Grumbling, Pacifica had turned away from them and gone back to sleep. It was several hours later that she finally sat up properly, yawning and energized.

She had looked around the hold, noticing that Dipper was no longer there—he must have woken up before her and headed up to the main deck, choosing to let her rest. She grinned as she stepped out of her hammock, moving more quickly now that she was the only one left in the hull.

They had spent an entire day and night heading towards the Bahamas, and she could already tell that the air outside the ship was warmer, the rays shining down on the metal turning the hull into a miniature oven. Ready for a relaxing day in the sun, she quickly got dressed—sandals, shorts, her new sun hat, and a loose pink t-shirt. She turned towards the stairs and headed for the deck—she hoped that she hadn’t missed the completion of the engine.

Now standing on the stern of the ship, her eyes took a moment to adjust to the sheer reflectivity of the abundant blue around her—there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the yellow sun was reflecting against the ocean, shatteringly white. She felt up to the top of her hat, and was pleased to discover that her sunglasses were still there. However, she didn’t need to put them on yet—she turned towards the cabin and stepped into the kitchen.

She could hear voices in the laboratory next door, but was more focused on the spectacle of the kitchen in front of her. She had missed breakfast, and the small snack she had had the previous night had long since faded away. The remnants of food were slim, the most obvious sign of it being the mountain of grease-covered frying pans stacked up in the sink. That would be a problem for someone else to deal with.

However, there was still a paper plate sitting on the counter with a few cold slices of bacon resting on a paper towel saturated with fat. Luckily, bacon was good at practically any temperature. Pacifica reached out and gingerly picked up a couple of strips, taking care not to touch the paper towel as she did so. A quick glance around the kitchen revealed that everyone was still in the laboratory, so she quickly bit into the bacon and shook her head vigorously, tearing a chunk of it away with her teeth.

Taking her time chewing, she walked over to the laboratory and leaned up against the doorway leading into it. The inside of the lab was a flurry of activity as Ford, Dipper, and Sam prepared for the final step in preparing the teleportation engine. Mabel, sitting backwards in a rolling chair, perked up when she saw Pacifica.

“How’s life, sleeping beauty?” Pacifica grinned, pointing towards Mabel with the bitten end of her bacon. Mabel’s eyes were as bright as ever, having slept through the storm—the only sign that she had slept in a hammock on a boat instead of in a bed was the fact that her hair was extremely frizzy, and the ponytail she had tied it back into was doing little to control it.

“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Sam laughed, beating Mabel to the punch. “Apparently there was a storm last night, but I didn’t figure that out until I came up this morning and the engine was charged.”

“It was pretty calm,” Pacifica replied, rolling her eyes. “I understand how you could have slept through it.”

“Your sarcasm is as enthralling as ever,” Sam chuckled, walking over to the smart board and sliding his finger across it, spinning the schematic of the engine in three dimensions.

“He’s joking,” Mabel answered, pointing to Sam as though his tone didn’t make it obvious. “But I really didn’t know about it. My hair did, apparently.” She reached up and tried to tamp down her hair, but it sprang back up immediately. Discharging all of that static electricity would take a pretty big shock.

“I’m sure you can dunk your head in the ocean if you want to fix it,” Dipper commented, before slowly sliding away one of the foam-tipped supporting arms that were holding the glass orb in place. The orb, surprisingly, remained still, already bound to the engine by the powerful magnetic forces within it.

“And the salt would make her hair look like a pretzel,” Pacifica answered, taking a calmer bite of bacon and walking over to Mabel. “All this will take is a little bit of brushing. We could do it much faster if we had an actual bathroom.”

“Sorry about that,” Ford chuckled before sliding the other supporting arm away. They were drawing closer to the moment of final discharge. “When we were renovating the boat, we had to decide between a bathroom and more lab space.”

“Clearly it wasn’t much of a decision,” Pacifica replied. “The lab takes up half the ship.”

“The lab takes up exactly as much space as it needs to,” Ford fired back with a gleam in his eye. “I’ve gone weeks without showering in the name of science.” He then reached into a drawer and withdrew four small pairs of scissors that seemed to have blades made of plastic. Attached to the handles of each, however, was a small piston and a computer chip.

“You weren’t hanging around in enclosed quarters at the time, though,” Dipper nodded. He took two of the scissors from Ford, and gently wedged them up against the glass orb, ready to cut the wires leading from the lightning modulation box to the metallic cages and spinning neodymium spheres within the engine. The lightning modulation box itself had been covered in a protective plastic sheet, though the screen on the front showed that it was still holding onto a charge of electricity from last night.

“That’s fair,” Ford acknowledged, pointing at his nephew. Pacifica and Mabel exchanged a glance as they rolled their eyes. Ford bent over and slid the two other pairs of scissors over the wires leading into the other orb. When he stood up, his bones audibly popped.

“Are we ready to do this?” Sam asked, turning to stand next to the table. The three men stood surrounding the engine, while Pacifica and Mabel were off to the side. “The math checks out… or, the equations are coming up green, at least.”

“I think so,” Ford exhaled breathlessly, eager to get the teleportation engine working. If they were able to successfully pull this off, then these agonizing days of travel could be eliminated—anywhere on the globe, and the _Stan o’ War II_ could be there in a heartbeat.

“Hold on a second,” Pacifica interrupted, swallowing. “Before you do this, what exactly is going to happen? I want to know if I need to dramatically cling to one of the doors if the boat explodes.”

“With any luck, that shouldn’t be necessary,” chuckled Ford. “Dipper, would you care to explain?” As Dipper pulled a pen out of his pocket to point at the different parts of the engine, Ford reached into another drawer and pulled out a small box that seemed to contain nothing except a button, which was itself protected by a plastic lid. He placed it on the table next to the remote control wired directly into the engine.

“When Ford pushes that button,” Dipper pointed towards the device, “two things are going to happen. The first thing is that the battery over here is going to send that final pulse of lightning into the spheres, causing a power surge. At that moment, we predict that the neodymium spheres are going to reach criticality, which is when the gravity-slash-superposition shenanigans start.”

“And then,” Sam picked up automatically, “the scissors are going to automatically cut the wires. At that moment, all of the concentrated electricity keeping the situation stable is going to evaporate. The wires that are still hanging out of the orbs are going to be absorbed by the immense gravitational pressure.”

“A split second later, the negative energy will superimpose itself upon itself in a singular sphere—the same goes for the positive,” Dipper continued, gesturing with his fingers. “The energy released by this will permanently fuse the glass orbs to the alien metal. Then, the central screw slams into place, keeping the charges separate. At that point, it’s all about the physical structure of the engine itself modulating the energy via the commands from the remote.”

“And it’s okay for us to be in the room when all of this is happening?” Mabel asked, raising her head. “It sounds like things could go very wrong very quickly.”

“Look at it this way,” Ford announced, “all of this is going to happen within two seconds. If something goes wrong, you won’t even have to worry about it before your molecules are torn apart.”

“It would be a good idea to put on protective glasses, though,” Sam offered, unable to avoid laughing at the distraught expression on Mabel’s face. He walked over to her and handed her a pair of darkened shades. Pacifica merely pulled down the sunglasses she was already wearing. “And like I said,” Sam whispered, loud enough for both Mabel and Pacifica to hear, though he was much closer to Mabel, “the math checks out. I wouldn’t let them do this if I didn’t think it was going to work.”

With that, he turned around and returned to the table. Pacifica looked at Mabel and shrugged as Ford pulled on his own pair of glasses and glanced around the room. No one was making a motion to leave—Dipper and Sam gave a thumbs up as they shielded their eyes.

“Alright then,” Ford chuckled. “Here goes nothing. If those scientists in the eighties can do it, then we sure as hell can.” He flipped open the plastic cover protecting the button, and pressed it with a slight click.

Everything seemed to happen simultaneously. A faint buzzing sound echoed through the room as the lightning stored in the copper coils discharged, and the lights within the orb grew much brighter. Pacifica found herself strangely short of breath as pinprick holes of darkness manifested within the glass. The scissors activated with a sharp snap, severing the wires and setting the energy loose.

For a moment, the light became the hue of a muted sunset as the energy swirled and mixed before separating and growing even more vibrant. With a flash as bright as the lightning the night before, the colors isolated—the blue concentrated entirely in one sphere, as the orange swept to the other. At the same time, the glass orbs slammed down into the engine with a loud bang and a hiss as they fused to the metal. A high whirring sound blasted out as the central bolt sank down.

For a moment, everyone in the room simply sat in stunned silence. By all accounts, it seemed to have worked—the boat was still intact, and the positive and negative energies were isolated. The lights within the orbs started to pulse, slowly dimming as they approached a state of homogeneity. However, it was impossible for the energy to completely dissipate, so it merely settled into a state of shimmering luminescence.

“Okay,” Ford nodded as he removed his glasses, indicating that it was okay for everyone else to take them off as well. “That’s not a bad start.”

“I don’t know how that could have gone better!” Sam shouted enthusiastically, tossing his glasses into the air in celebration. The ceiling was low, however, so they crashed into the metallic roof with a bang before falling to the floor with a similar bang. “It worked exactly how we thought it would.”

“Like I said,” Ford smiled, “it’s a good start. We’ve charged the engine—by all accounts, it’s a perfect replica of the one we originally found in the _Borealis._ But before we celebrate, we need to make sure that it actually works.”

“Is it time for a field test?” Dipper asked, bouncing on his heels happily.

“It is,” Ford nodded gravely, though he was unable to conceal his own enthusiasm. “We’ve got to ensure that our teleportation engine actually teleports.”

“Not to be OSHA, or anything,” Pacifica began, raising a finger in the air, “because I don’t think they have jurisdiction this far out in the water, but what exactly are you going to test it on? This boat is moving, and testing it on humans first seems like a bad idea.”

“Well, I was going to ask for volunteers,” Ford answered, rolling his eyes. “But since there don’t seem to be a lot of people lining up to help with that, we’ll have to improvise. Sam,” he continued, turning to face the blonde boy. “If you go into the hold, you should find a tote labeled ‘Emergency Supplies.’ Please bring it up here.” Sam saluted and immediately left the room.

“What’s the emergency?” Mabel asked as Ford and Dipper knelt down and started to unlock the wheels on the worktable, allowing it to be rolled. “I thought the engine was stable.”

“It’s not an emergency yet,” Ford replied, grunting as he started to push the table towards the rear deck. Dipper held the door open, and Mabel stood up to follow them with Pacifica close on her heels. Pacifica took another bite of her bacon. “We just need it to make sure that we can recover the engine if this goes wrong.”

“Recover the engine?” Pacifica asked, concerned as she put her sunglasses back on. They were now all on the outside deck, and the weather was becoming more tropical by the moment. “We had to charge that thing with a lightning storm. There are black holes involved. I don’t think we should put it in any situation where we might have to ‘recover’ it.”

“That’s the clever thing about this design, though,” Ford beamed as he turned to her. “This engine is one of the most stable devices I’ve ever created. All of the energy is contained by the actual physical layout of the metal itself—it can be disconnected from power with no negative consequences. The alien metal is almost indestructible, and if the glass spheres do happen to get punctured—well, we know from the shapeshifter that the engine just self-disassembles.”

“You mean it disintegrates,” Mabel commented, taking the bacon from Pacifica’s hand and taking a bite before handing it back to her. Pacifica looked at her in disbelief, and then tore off the part her lips had touched and tossed it in the ocean.

“More or less,” Ford shrugged, before taking a deep breath. “Hey Stanley!” he called out loudly, “stop the boat, would you?” With that, the steady rumble of the engines dissipated and the _Stan o’ War II_ started to glide to a halt, the foamy churn of the water behind it dissipating into the vastness of the sea.

“Are you sure that tossing that thing in the water is the best idea?” Stan called out from somewhere behind them. Craning her neck, Pacifica tried to see where he was. It took a moment before she finally spotted him—he had moved his deck chair up to the wheelhouse, and was lazily monitoring the course of the ship as he read a magazine. It was truly the most comfortable she had ever seen him—and for just a moment, she was envious of the life he had out on the sea with his brother.

“The best idea?” Ford answered as Sam emerged from the hull carrying the box Ford had mentioned. He set it down on the deck and opened it, stepping back as Ford reached inside. He pulled out a smaller orange box, made of rubber with a black handle attached to the side.

Ford set the orange box down on the deck and pulled the handle with a grunt. The box immediately started to fold out as it swelled in size, popping and hissing as it drew air from the compressed canisters located inside it. Within a minute, there was a small inflatable life raft next to the worktable.

“Probably not,” Ford continued, “but it’s the best one we’ve got at the moment!” Stan scoffed and returned to his magazine. Lab work had never been his chosen specialization, and he was more than happy to be in charge of the boat while Ford and the teenagers worked on the engine.

“So what exactly is the plan here?” Pacifica asked, taking her final bite of bacon and wiping her hands clean on Mabel’s shirt sleeve as retribution. Mabel didn’t notice. “You’re going to test the engine by throwing it in the ocean?”

“We’re going to teleport it into the ocean,” Dipper answered, stepping up to the worktable with Sam and Ford. “Pacifica, Mabel, could you help us? When we lift up the engine, could you put the raft underneath it?”

“Why aren’t you just moving the engine down to the deck?” Mabel asked, though she and Pacifica were already moving to lift the raft. It was heavier than they had expected, though they were still able to handle it with little difficulty.

“The engine teleports everything in a sphere around itself,” Dipper grunted as he and the two other men lifted the engine. There was a slight scraping sound as the rubber raft slid across the metal worktable, and then gasps of relief as they set the metal construct back down. The lights within the orbs flickered in annoyance. “If we just teleported it on the deck, it would eat a hole in the boat.”

“Good thinking,” Pacifica nodded. “But what exactly are you going to do once you teleport it into the ocean?” she continued, stepping back as Sam started to tie the engine to the raft using some of the attached straps.

“We’re not going to send it too far,” Dipper answered, slapping the engine like a car or a horse. “So then we’ll just go and pick it back up.”

“Are we still going to be able to see it?” Mabel asked, raising her hand.

“We should be able to,” Sam responded, plucking the straps like a guitar string. “But, if we can’t, Dr. Ford put a GPS tracker on it.”

“Just to be extra safe, though,” began Ford, reaching back into the tote Sam had brought and pulling out a bright yellow buoy. He passed it to Dipper, shortly followed by a long coil of thick nylon rope, made of braided strands of blue and white. “We’ll tie this to it in case we have to drag it up from the bottom. Stanley! How deep is the water here?”

“Uhh… you’re looking at about sixty feet,” Stan answered from above. “We’re passing the first islands in the Bahamas, but our destination is a good bit further south.”

“We’ll use eighty feet of rope, then,” nodded Ford as Dipper quickly lashed the rope to the buoy, and then started to coil the excess up onto the deck. “Just to be on the safe side.” Pulling a knife from his jacket, Ford cut the rope and tied the other end to the engine himself. Sam and Dipper quickly lifted the rope and buoy onto the raft with the engine.

“Is there any other safety stuff we need?” asked Dipper, panting heavily and placing his hands on his hips—unexpectedly holding onto eighty feet of thick rope was tiring. “Or are we ready to push the button?”

“I think we’re ready,” Ford grinned, picking up the remote that was hard wired into the engine. “When the engine activates, the connection between it and this remote is going to be severed, but rewiring that shouldn’t be much of a problem.” Sam flipped his sunglasses down over his eyes as Pacifica grabbed Mabel’s hand and took her to the side of the boat, halfway sheltering behind the metal wall of the cabin.

“I really hope this works,” Dipper replied, catching his breath as he leaned up against the railing. Ford stood up and walked backwards, ending up next to his nephew as he started to input coordinates into the remote.

“So do I,” answered Ford. “Stanley! What are our current coordinates?”

“If you’re asking so many questions, you ought to come up here and look yourself!” Stan called back in mock annoyance as he put down his magazine and leaned forward. There was a moment’s pause as he read the instrument panel. “You ready?”

“Call it out!” Ford responded, hands on the keypad integrated into the remote. The original remote had relied on physical dials and levers—the one Ford had designed instead had a digital display, though he had retained the actual ‘teleport’ button, now protected by a plastic case.

“25, 30, 37 North!” Stan shouted, giving Ford a moment to type before he continued. “And 78, 49, 33 West!”

“Thanks!” Ford answered as the remote emitted a slight beeping sound. “Do you want to watch this?”

“I’ll turn my chair around,” Stan sighed, standing up and spinning to face the back of the boat. The metal legs of his lounge chair scraped as it spun, before Stan sat back down with a grunt.

“Okay,” Ford murmured, looking at the remote. “We don’t want to teleport the engine directly on top of us, so we’ll adjust these numbers slightly. 25, 30, 39 North, and 78, 49, 31 West. We want to teleport everything in a three foot radius of the core, and… that should have it. Dipper,” he continued, flipping open the protective cover. “Would you care to do the honors?”

“With pleasure,” Dipper smiled, taking the remote from Ford. He looked around the deck of the boat to ensure that everyone was a safe distance away—Pacifica and Mabel were sheltering behind the cabin, Stan sat in the wheelhouse, and Sam was leaning up against the railing on the port side. “Fire in the hole!”

There was a slight click as Dipper pressed the button—then, all eyes went to the engine. The central bolt whirred up a single turn as the lights within the glass orbs began to pulse and shine more brightly. When the shapeshifter had destroyed the previous engine, there had been a tremendous tornado of debris as the atoms tore themselves apart.

The reaction of the engine now was calm and silent. As the energy from the orbs crept through the body of the device, the air around the metal structure became hazy—like a nearsighted person looking at a distant streetlight without glasses. Small rifts bordered by swirling blue, orange, red, and green cables of color opened in the air before immediately closing. It became possible to see through the engine to the deck beneath, and then within the structure of the worktable as the poles that supported it were gently severed.

Then, with a final pop, the engine completely vanished, taking the raft along with it. The only sign that it had once been there was the gentle swirl of air rushing to fill the vacuum, a small scrap of orange rubber, and a worktable that was missing its top.

“Eyes on the horizon, people!” Ford called out. The danger having passed, Pacifica and Mabel crept out from behind the sheltering wall of the cabin and started to search the nearby ocean for the appearing engine. Mabel, sheltering her eyes with er hands, walked all the way to the stern.

For several seconds, there was no sign of the engine whatsoever. Ford and Dipper both started to scratch their chins in confusion—this wasn’t supposed to happen. Teleportation was almost instantaneous, and the engine certainly hadn’t disintegrated. It had to be somewhere.

“I’ll go check the GPS,” Ford said, turning to enter the laboratory.

“LOOK OUT!” shouted Stan from the wheelhouse, pointing into the air off the back of the boat. Every head on the deck instantly snapped up, trying to spot whatever Stan was seeing.

They didn’t have time to before the engine plummeted from the sky, cratering into the water a mere two feet from the back of the boat. The orange raft, now deflated, did nothing. The entire boat shook as the water behind it was displaced, pulling backwards and then surging forward as the ocean rushed in to fill the gap.

Mabel screamed as the sea erupted into a fountain of spray, sending a wave eight feet high over the stern of the _Stan o’ War II._ Everyone clung onto the railings as they were showered with water, but Mabel was the closest to the impact site—she quickly lost her grip and was swept away into the ocean.

“Mabel!” Dipper called out, racing over to the back of the boat as the engine slowly sank to the bottom, the massive explosion it had created already being swallowed by the vastness of the water around them. Those ripples, however, were carrying a shouting Mabel farther away from the vessel. Dipper quickly pulled his shirt off, ready to jump in after his sister. Pacifica struggled to pry her hands loose from their white-knuckle grip on the railing.

Before Dipper was able to dive into the water, however, Sam entered the ocean with a splash. Clothes still on, he had dashed across the deck and leapt over the railing in a shallow dive, sliding into the water with an ease that only came from life around the sea. Bursting out of the water with a gasp, he started to pump his arms in a freestyle stroke, plowing through the ocean towards the struggling Mabel.

Mabel had no trouble swimming, but the weight of the water in her hair and her clothes was weighing her down, combined with the sheer shock of what had just happened. Her teeth were chattering as Sam approached her.

“I’ve got you,” he reassured her, reaching out and taking her by the waist. “You’re safe now.” Mabel started to kick furiously—not to break away from him, but to help them get to the boat faster as Sam leaned backwards and started to sidestroke back to the _Stan o’ War II._

Back on deck, Ford quickly opened the gate in the railing above the ladder behind the boat while Dipper and Pacifica watched in amazement. Stan was in the process of descending from the wheelhouse, and jumped down the final rungs before rushing over to the stern of the ship.

“What happened?” Mabel gasped as Sam grabbed onto the ladder, staying in the water as he helped Mabel get her feet on the aluminum platform. Sam placed a hand on the small of her back, lifting her up as she extended her arms towards Stan and Dipper. Taking her hands, they pulled her onto the deck, where she promptly sat down.

She was dripping wet, her hair plastered to her skin as she started to shakily catch her breath. One of her feet was missing its sandal, now lost to the Atlantic. She pulled her arms tightly around herself and shivered, not from cold, but from fright.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked as he climbed out of the water. “Answer that question first.” He was soaked as well, though he had been lucky enough to keep his shoes. Seeing that both of them were safe, Pacifica quickly walked over to the tote of emergency supplies and pulled out a couple of small white towels. Passing the towels to Sam and Mabel, they both swept their hair away from their faces before continuing.

“Yeah,” Mabel answered, beginning to calm down. “I’m fine. I just… wasn’t expecting that.”

“Neither was I,” murmured Ford, looking at the yellow buoy that floated on the surface, marking the location of the teleportation engine on the seafloor. “That really shouldn’t have happened.”

“We shouldn’t have teleported it that close to the boat,” scolded Dipper, as much towards himself as towards Ford. “If it had been a few feet closer it could have landed right on top of her.” Mabel shivered, and both Sam and Dipper put a hand on her shoulder to steady her.

“Yeah,” Sam picked up. “And why was it so high in the air? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Idiot!” Ford swore to himself under his breath, kicking a nearby part of the railing. “We didn’t factor in elevation. There was no harness on that aspect of it, so we’re really lucky that it didn’t end up in the stratosphere.”

“Can we correct for that?” Dipper asked, standing up and walking over next to Ford. He clasped his mentor on the shoulder, reassuring him. Mabel had both Sam and Pacifica.

“We can,” answered Ford, eyes searching the horizon as he started parsing through possible solutions. “I’ll just need to go into the code in the remote. Set the baseline of sea level to zero, and it should just be another number we need to input. Redefine a few of the parameters to better account for differences created in the alien metal, too. And we can set it to automatically correct for the Coriolis effect.”

“Coriolis effect?” Dipper asked, looking down at the buoy.

“The rotation of the earth,” Ford clarified. “That’s probably why it was so close to the boat instead of a few seconds to the east.”

“Yeah…” Mabel mumbled from the deck of the boat. “You may want to fix that.”

“We’ll fix it once we have a chance to haul the engine up,” Stan smiled, turning towards his great-niece. “Right now, you need to get dried off and cleaned up. Your safety is much more important than running another trial on the engine. Blondie?”

“I’m on it,” Pacifica answered, grabbing Mabel’s left arm and standing up, pulling the brunette up along with her. Mabel stood on shaky legs, leaning on Pacifica for support. Together, the two girls turned and began making their way towards the hold.

“Sam,” said Ford, “thank you for doing that. You deserve a break to get cleaned up as well.”

“I’ll wait until they’re done,” Sam answered, shaking his head like a dog and sending a spray of seawater into the air. “I’m fine to drip dry out here. We can pull the engine up now, if you like.”

“A gentleman and a scholar,” Stan scoffed, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms.

“It’s just as well,” Ford continued. “We need someone to get back into the water to bring the rope over here.” Sam didn’t say anything in response to that—the next thing the two girls heard was a splash.

Pacifica glanced over to Mabel. Now that she had had a chance to regain her bearings, her cheeks were as red as a tomato, only broken up by the white gleam of the smile she was unable to wipe from her face.

“You know,” Pacifica smirked as she knelt down and opened the hatch into the hold. “When Dipper told you to go dunk your head in the ocean, I don’t think he meant it literally. Though I applaud your ingenuity in getting Sam to hold you.”

“You’re the worst,” Mabel chuckled in response, shaking her head.

“And you’re only realizing this now?” laughed Pacifica.


	15. Song

Mabel slowly tiptoed across the hold on her way to the stairs—Dipper and Pacifica were tossing and turning in their sleep, as always, while Sam was silent, lumpy under a blanket.

The quiet rumble of Mabel’s stomach had woken her from her slumber. Dinner the previous evening had been prepared by Dipper, instead of Pacifica—his hot dog and pimento cheese sandwiches had been edible, but barely so.

After the accident with the teleportation engine, the rest of the day had passed uneventfully. Pacifica had helped Mabel to get cleaned up, using a dry shampoo to lift the salt from her hair before it had a chance to crystallize. The two girls had then taken chairs up to the bow of the ship and simply sat, Pacifica reading through Dipper’s additions to his journal while Mabel knitted, enjoying the sun and scenery as the ship plowed closer towards their destination.

Now, however, the ship had fallen silent for the night. The only sign of movement was the calm swaying of the hammocks and the resolute thrum of the engines through the bones of the boat as it surged forward. The craft was on autopilot as well, making it the perfect opportunity for a midnight snack.

Creeping silently up the stairs, Mabel quietly lifted the hatch and lowered it back down with as little nose as possible. She felt a cool breeze across her arms and ankles as she stepped into the night air—it was the Bahamas, but the nights were still colder than the days. She was wearing low cut pink socks, along with plaid flannel pants and a pale purple t-shirt.

Outside, it was surprisingly dark—the bulb in the mast floodlight hadn’t yet been replaced from when lightning had shattered it the night before, since there was no longer any need for illumination in the storm. The only artificial lights came from the flashing red and green bulbs on the bow and stern of the boat. However, their dim glow was easily outshone by the flickering stars and silver moon overhead.

Mabel craned her neck to look up at the sky, but only paused for a moment before stealthily turning towards the right and making her way towards the kitchen—there would be time for observing the beauty of the night once she had something in her stomach. She flipped on the lights as she opened the door, casting the deck of the ship in an overpowering incandescent glow.

Humming to herself, she rubbed her hands together and walked towards the cabinet with all of the canned goods in it. She knew exactly what she was after, opening the door with a creak.

She crouched down and stuck her arm all the way inside, pinching her tongue between her teeth as she rummaged around until she felt the smooth printed carboard box she was searching for. Pulling out Stan’s snack cakes, she shook the box and peered down into it. Hiding the cakes amongst the cans was an ineffective strategy.

There was only one left. Mabel shook her head and placed it back in the cabinet—Stan’s stash was, by this point, an open secret, but he would still complain if someone took the last one. It wouldn’t take long for him to figure out who it had been—Mabel always cracked if someone in her family started asking questions

Mabel grunted as she stood up and opened the fridge door. The light inside poured out into the kitchen, accompanied by the gentle clinking of glass bottles. There were lots of raw ingredients, but nothing that could be eaten just as it was. She grumbled to herself, interrupting her steady humming as she closed the door and walked over to another cabinet.

She reached in and pulled out a loaf of bread, a half-empty jar of peanut butter, and a plastic bear full of honey that was in a perpetual state of stickiness. It wouldn’t be as sweet of a snack as Mabel had hoped, but it would at least be filling—and she was always happy to support the beekeeping industry.

Silverware clinked as Mabel opened another drawer, pulling out a knife and a paper plate. She started humming again as the plastic wrap around the bread quietly crinkled. She placed two slices on a paper plate, and started to spread peanut butter on them, quickly growing frustrated at how every swipe of her knife also seemed to scrape up some of the bread.

She held the bread in place as she finished applying the peanut butter, and then popped the top off of the honey bear and turned it over. Squeezing tightly, a thin stream of the viscous, golden syrup poured down onto the bread. Deftly navigating the container in the air, Mabel quickly doodled two smiley faces onto the peanut butter.

Mabel smiled in returned as she capped the honey and returned all of the ingredients to their proper places. The faces on the bread only stayed intact for a few seconds before they started to lose their structure and ooze into the contours and canyons of the peanut butter. But for a few glorious moments, they had been happy.

Mabel picked up the paper plate and lifted one of the slices of bread, biting into it as she turned and walked towards the laboratory entrance. The savory stickiness of the peanut butter clung to her tongue, while the pure sweetness of the orange blossom honey gave a citrusy pop. Even the bread was slightly sweet, though it mostly served as a delivery mechanism for other things.

She flipped the kitchen lights off as she entered the laboratory. Though she had originally intended to eat on the deck, she opted instead to make a detour through the lab to see how things were going with the engine. It had taken Dipper, Sam, Stan, and Ford working together to drag it back up from the seafloor. Now, however, it sat on a new worktable in the lab appearing none the worse for wear.

Like Ford had said, the engine was entirely waterproof and self-contained. The only places where water could possibly have crept in were around the central bolt and the wires that attached to the remote, but those were protected by rubber fittings. Indeed, after it had dried off, the only sign of the engine’s untimely swim were a few stray pieces of seaweed that had to be picked off by hand.

The lights within the glass orbs continued to shed their faintly pulsing orange and blue shine into the laboratory. The abalone gleam of the metal shone even brighter, now that it had been washed and polished. The wires connecting the engine to the remote, which had been severed during the test, had been attached directly to one of the computer banks that lined the walls of the lab.

Mabel took another bite as she walked over to the large interactive board on the wall. Lines of the code that Ford had programmed into the remote were scrolling across the screen as the computer parsed them, identifying weak points and highlighting them in red. It was meaningless gibberish to her, but she was still impressed by the amount of code that Ford had to write to bring the old technology of the engine into the modern age. Fixing all of the gaps to make it safe enough to transport people would take days.

In the corner of the board was a small globe, with the weirdness heat map overlaid onto it. The position of the _Stan o’ War II_ was marked by a bright white dot. The latitude and longitude readings were constantly changing as the ship progressed towards a large red-orange blob approximately a hundred and fifty miles to the south.

Mabel swallowed as she contemplated that blob. She was used to the Gravity Falls brand of weirdness, but was confused as to what could possibly be creating such a massive spike of activity in such a seemingly peaceful, mundane place.

She reached and spun the globe, allowing her to see Gravity Falls. Much like before, there was a thick, swirling, crimson band around the edges of the Gravity Well, while the center of the eye was almost completely void of activity. There was currently no weirdness in the heart of Gravity Falls.

It was likely that whatever was causing the attempted exodus from the Falls and the force that was concentrating activity in unorthodox places like the Bahamas and Japan were related. That much was obvious to Mabel—the next question, of how to discover what this force was, she was less sure of how to answer.

When adventuring with Dipper, and later on with Pacifica, Mabel had carried herself admirably. She had saved their lives, and been saved by them. It would have been impossible without her, and she knew it—she was a valuable member of the team, even if she left the harder science to Dipper and Ford. A smile crossed her face as she thought about how she had used the magnet gun to save Dipper during their original trip to Seattle, though it quickly faded as she thought about yesterday.

Something had changed, but she wasn’t sure what. She had been swept out into the water by a simple malfunction of the technology that sat on the worktable behind her, and she had completely frozen up. If she couldn’t even survive being thrown in the ocean, then she was much less confident in her ability to handle whatever it was that lay in the blob ahead. After all, Sam had had to jump into the ocean to rescue her.

Sam.

Mabel took another bite, this one much larger as she turned towards the door leading out to the rear deck. Still holding onto a piece of bread with one hand, and her paper plate with the other, she kicked the door open and stepped out into the night air.

She turned to the right, walking into the gap between the protective railing and outer wall of the laboratory. Leaning on the railing and settling into a comfortable position, an uplifted foot bracing her against the cabin, she looked up at the sky and continued to eat.

Sam. Mabel had talked about him with Dipper once, and with Pacifica so many times more. But, despite these conversations, she felt no closer to understanding her feelings about him, or her feelings about herself.

Pacifica had been right when she said that Sam was different. Mabel had always been the extroverted, enthusiastic one who chased the boys she liked. But that was when she had been twelve and thirteen—now that she was sixteen, and standing a mere two months away from 17, things felt different.

When she had been younger, she had looked at magazines and television to see what a relationship looked like—full of drama and grand gestures. Her parents had a good marriage, but they were adults—they couldn’t possibly know what it was like to be a young person trying to figure these things out. Absent a role model, she had thrown herself into the kind of relationships she had seen with all her heart.

But the past year had been different. She had seen Dipper and Pacifica grow closer—sharing inside jokes, exploring the mysteries of Gravity Falls along with the mysteries of life, and simply spending time together. It wasn’t big, and it wasn’t dramatic—the most flamboyant moment had been when Mabel had convinced them to kiss back in Seattle. The love that they had was calm, steady, and unyielding. It spoke to the promise of a future, of purity, of honesty and cleanliness.

Mabel wanted that. Pacifica made Dipper happier than Mabel had ever seen him—his normal anxiety was still there, but it was plastered over, ameliorated by a quiet contentedness. Mabel wasn’t burdened by that same nervousness, but she had her own set of personal improvements to make—the person who she could love could both match her energy, and reign in her more dangerous impulses.

Looking back over her past romances, Mabel could see how often she had been barking up the wrong tree. Boys who could never understand her, boys who didn’t want to understand her. They were either too invested in power or puppets, or they simply existed at too great a distance away.

Surely, there were a couple of good ones out of the bunch—Hudson was the most immediate one who leapt to her mind. She had only seen him in person once, but they had texted a good deal afterwards. Once she returned to Piedmont, though, they began to slowly drift apart. She hadn’t spoken to him in months—if only they had been closer.

And, occasionally, in her dreams, she would find herself swimming with Mermando amongst a pod of dolphins. It had been three years since she had seen him, however—and even the strangely mature sound of his voice was beginning to fade in her memory.

She still thought about the others on an almost daily basis—Gabe, Sev’ral Timez, Norman, those vampires, the mattress salesman-slash-mini golf course manager, and a couple of others. Since those were people best left behind, she quickly pushed them out of her mind. The only person who she never thought about, unless Dipper brought him up, was Gideon.

Mabel took another bite of her snack, and tossed the last crust of her first slice of bread into the water. She watched it drift away into the darkness, swept up in the churn of the boat’s engines. Soon, however, a ring of small bubbles appeared around it and it slipped beneath the waves, eaten by something hidden beneath.

The names dancing through her head brought to the forefront of her mind the fears that she had confided in Dipper. Yes, all of those boys were ill-suited for her, and her for them. But there were still aspects of them that she deeply liked, and in fact loved. She had grown as a person over the years, but the core of what she found attractive about them remained.

She also knew that she was impulsive, and often started chasing a boy before she had given it a great deal of thought. This stood in stark contrast to Dipper, who had taken three years before he had finally mustered up the confidence to kiss Pacifica. If Mabel found herself in the presence of a person she knew she liked, would she be able to control herself?

The fear ate at her slowly, an amoeba creeping in her brain. As much as she craved what Dipper and Pacifica had, the last thing she wanted was to put a person she deeply cared about in a situation where they could be hurt. The possibility of pain was real, but it was equally likely that she was blowing the risks out of proportion—that she was looking for an excuse to stay alone.

Mabel knew that relationships required commitment, and she knew that she would dedicate herself to the construction of a relationship wholeheartedly. It was one of the most brilliant aspects of her personality—her ability to so completely vanish into a project that she would lose track of everything else until it was completed. She had a strong enough moral compass to know not to cheat.

The steady slap of the water against the hull of the ship reminded Mabel of the clack of her knitting needles, in turn reminding her of the night she had spent counseling Pacifica at the inn in Seattle. It had been the night after Dipper had finally kissed her, and Pacifica was twisted up with uncertainty and fear about what to do next.

Pacifica had laid out her worries for Mabel, who had diagnosed them and consoled her friend with no trouble. The moment that stuck in Mabel’s mind the most from that night was when Pacifica had brought up the possibility of what she and Dipper might do alone. Mabel had been forced to bow her head and sigh, acknowledging that she had no expertise in that area.

The admission of defeat wasn’t merely for sexual things—Mabel was exactly as exhilarated and terrified by such possibilities as Pacifica had been. It was a surrender of all practical experience. For all the hours that Mabel had spent guiding Pacifica and Dipper together, their kiss in Seattle had marked the moment when they officially knew more about relationships that she did.

Pacifica had, in turn, done her best to help Mabel grow in her own understanding of what a good relationship looked like. Mabel saw Dipper and Pacifica together, and imagined herself and Sam in such a position—she liked what she saw. However, none of Pacifica’s words or reassurances could dissipate the worries, anxieties, and insecurities plaguing her newfound understanding of what a proper romance was.

Taking that final step, in spite of those insecurities, would be up to both her and Sam together. It would take a tremendous moment of courage on Mabel’s part, but she knew that she was ready to take it. She was much less sure about Sam’s intentions.

Suddenly, a sharp and twangy sound rang out over the ocean. Mabel’s ears perked up as she tried to locate the source of the sound from somewhere behind her. It was an instrument being strummed rapidly, a tropical and citrus sound that bounced off of itself, swelling louder as the chords changed.

“ _I was scared of dentists and the dark,”_ Sam’s voice began to ring, echoing off of the water and fading away into the silent lapping waves of the night. Mabel walked out onto the rear deck in amazement, trying to find where he was.

The few clouds that obscured the stars seemed to melt away as she turned around and spotted him—he was sitting in Stan’s chair, observing the controls in the wheelhouse as the boat sailed on. He was facing forward, unable to see Mabel. In his hands was a small ukulele—a bit warped on the sides, but the music it made was resonant and sweet.

Mabel was unable to keep her mouth completely closed, holding onto her peanut butter-and-honey midnight snack as Sam continued to sing:

_“I was scared of pretty girls and starting conversations,_

_Oh, all my friends are turning green._

_You’re the magician’s assistant in their dreams…_

_Ah-ooh-ooh-ooh, ah-ahh-ah-ah,_

_and they come unstuck…”_

His voice was loud and powerful, but he hit every note perfectly. Mabel was immediately convinced that he had been part of a choir in his younger days, though she wasn’t yet sure if it would have been affiliated with a church or a school. The reverberating baritone of his voice seemed to shake both the air and the boat—though that could have just been the engines.

Sam was just sitting there, singing to himself and to the world. Mabel started to tap her foot as Sam continued to strum the ukulele—she recognized the song. It was ‘ _Riptide,’_ by Vance Joy, and she wouldn’t have picked any other song for him to play.

As Sam inhaled, ready to begin the next verse, Mabel instinctively inhaled as well, getting ready to sing along with him.

“ _Lady, running down to the riptide,”_ Sam and Mabel called out together into the darkness. Sam faltered slightly, surprised to hear Mabel standing behind him. He turned his head and spotted her, smiling as they continued singing.

“ _Taken away to the dark side,_

_I wanna be your left hand man._

_I love you when you’re singing that song,_

_and I’ve got a lump in my throat_

_‘cause you’re gonna sing the words wrong…”_

Mabel stopped singing, ready for Sam to play the next chords before they continued on with the lyrics. However, Sam let his playing dwindle down to silence and set the ukulele on his lap, turning to face her.

Mabel, standing in the center of the deck under his gaze, wearing nothing but pajamas and holding only a slice of bread smothered in peanut butter and honey, suddenly felt very exposed.

“You’ve got a good voice, Miss Starr,” Sam commented, eyes, hair, and teeth shining in the starlight. “If I had a tambourine, you could play it and we could do a proper rendition of the song.”

“We’d also need some drums,” Mabel laughed, casting her eyes down and brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ears. “And my voice isn’t that great. It’s not as good as Pacifica’s.”

“That’s only because Pacifica was forced to learn how to sing,” Sam laughed. “You’re genuinely not bad. You just need a little practice.”

“Usually I sing badly on purpose,” Mabel shrugged. “It annoys my brother.”

“He seems like the kind of person who gets scared by loud noises,” Sam chuckled, draping his arm over the back of his lounge chair. “I’m sure Pacifica could teach you how to handle your voice if you’d like. You could crush the next karaoke competition you do.”

“I’m not doing anything right now,” Mabel said quickly, almost before she realized what she was saying. “I mean, I know guys and girl’s voices aren’t the same, but you could probably show me the basics. If you’re not busy.”

“Come on up,” Sam smiled, pointing at the ladder next to the laboratory door. “All I’m doing up here is making sure we don’t crash into anything. Ford asked me to take first watch and keep an eye on the boat and the teleportation engine.”

“Well, the engine’s fine,” Mabel commented as she walked up to the ladder. She wrapped one hand around a rung, then looked at the paper plate in her hand with a puzzled expression. Getting her snack up to the wheelhouse would be quite the process.

Slowly, she made her way up to the top of the cabin, pinching her plate between her fingers while also resting it against a rung and the wall. Once she was three rungs up, she was high enough to reach up and gently push the plate over onto the top.

“And, you know,” Mabel continued as she pulled herself onto the roof of the cabin. “Karaoke isn’t a competition.” Her hand flashed out to grab onto the protective glass of the wheelhouse, now folded up, as she got used to the new elevation.

Traveling on the top of the cabin was a lot different than riding on the deck or in the hull. The wind seemed faster, and you had a much wider perspective on the state of things around the ship. The higher elevation allowed her to peer slightly deeper into the water, several feet of it illuminated by the moon.

This was also Mabel’s first full look at the controls of the ship. In the center of the shelter was an old wooden wheel, taken from the original _Stan o’ War._ To the left of the wheel was a control panel about three feet long, featuring screens that showed the exact location of the ship, the depth of the water, and a constant sonar reading of the surrounding sea. Red blips were constantly appearing and disappearing on the screen—probably fish.

To the right of the wheel was a pole meant to support another instrument panel, though nothing had been mounted to it yet.

Mabel used this loose pole for support as she lowered herself to the floor—there was only one lounge chair present on the roof of the cabin. She draped her feet through the safety railing, and leaned forward against a horizontal strut. She had a perfect view of the bow of the ship.

“Especially not with a band as well-known as Love Patrol Alpha,” Sam chuckled, tentatively plucking a string on his ukulele and tuning it accordingly—the humidity was affecting the tension in the instrument.

“How do you know about that?!” Mabel asked, turning to face him and setting her snack down on the ground next to her. “Stan made me delete all of those pictures.”

“Word gets around,” Sam answered mischievously, narrowing his eyes as he fiddled with his instrument. When he saw Mabel’s worried expression, he lightened up. “Dipper told Pacifica, and Pacifica told me.”

“That makes sense,” Mabel shrugged, leaning back over the railing.

For several minutes there was silence as both teenagers looked out towards the meeting point between the ocean and the sky. The moon and stars reflecting in the shimmering whitecaps was a beautiful sight, but the atmosphere between Mabel and Sam was not the easy company shared by Dipper and Pacifica. It was instead loaded with tension, almost palpable.

The thing that stuck most in Mabel’s mind was how little she actually knew about Sam’s thoughts towards her. Both Dipper and Pacifica had reassured her that Sam didn’t despise her, and counted her as a friend, but their words did little to soothe her.

Mabel had only seen the male end of relationships from Dipper’s perspective, and the beginning of his love with Pacifica had been fraught with anxiety and fear. The easy relaxation with which Sam held himself wasn’t similar at all.

She needed more information. There had to be some way to spark a conversation, to learn more about what was going on beneath his blonde locks. She glanced towards her paper plate.

“Do you want a snack?” Mabel asked, picking up her slice of bread and attempting to tear it in half. In doing so, she actually ripped a crescent shape into it that only contained a quarter of the bread. In an attempt to make it better, she quickly tore off another piece and stacked it on top of the crescent. “It’s just peanut butter and honey, but it’s not bad. I promise.”

“Since you went to so much effort,” smiled Sam, leaning forward and taking the torn pieces from her. “I suppose I could eat.” He set his ukulele down on his lap and bit into the bread. Mabel looked at the half that she still head, but set it back down on the plate. Her appetite had suddenly left her.

“Hey,” Mabel began, leaning back on her arms and turning to look at Sam as he ate. “Thanks for inviting us to come out here. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t invite you to come out here,” Sam answered, cocking his head. “This is your uncles’ boat. They invited us.”

“Not on the boat,” Mabel corrected. “Out to South Carolina. I know that the Fourth of July Party is usually a Southeast-slash-Northwest business thing, but I’m really happy you asked us to come. There’s so much here that I’ve never seen before.”

“You’re fun to be around,” Sam shrugged, pausing in tuning his string as his brow furrowed. “You and Dipper both.” The blush that she had felt rising in her cheeks was snuffed out.

“You too,” Mabel replied, trying to roll with the comment and spin it around. “And I’m not just saying that because you’re rich and I want your money.”

“But you do want the money?” Sam smirked as he tentatively strummed the ukulele.

“Everyone wants money, Sam,” Mabel rolled her eyes. “It’s what I want to do with the money that makes me different.”

“Subtle bait, but I’ll bite,” Sam answered. “What do you want to do with the money?”

“I’m going to buy enough yarn to start a business making sweaters for farm animals,” Mabel answered, perfectly straight. “We’ll sell them to farmers, and we’ll make a killing. Then we can buy more yarn.”

“Intriguing proposal,” Sam nodded. “But I don’t know how much of a market that’s going to be. Not to put too fine a point on it, but a lot of farms don’t really care about making their animals comfortable. All they care about is money.”

“That’s the key to it!” Mabel continued enthusiastically. “All we have to do it get one farmer to agree to buy them. Then, the internet will pick up on it, and since nothing is as cute as animals in people clothes, that farmer’s sales are going to skyrocket. Then everyone will want to get in on the action. More money for everyone, and the animals get sweaters.”

“And you’re going to knit all of these by hand?” asked Sam, raising an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of work.”

“Of course I’m going to knit them all!” Mabel replied, shaking her head in disbelief. “Who else is going to do it?”

“Not me, that’s for sure,” Sam laughed. “I don’t even know how to knit.”

“I’ll make you a deal, then,” Mabel responded slyly, turning her body and pulling one leg back up into the wheelhouse. “You teach me how to sing, and I’ll teach you how to knit. Sound fair?”

“More or less,” Sam smiled, his fingers dancing over the neck of the ukulele. Mabel’s eyes followed them instinctively before refocusing on his face. “Would you like your first lesson now?”

“That’s what I came up here for,” Mabel answered, pulling her other leg onto the floor and spinning around, facing Sam with her legs crossed.

“Very well, young pupil,” Sam bowed sarcastically. “Lesson one—you’re a lady, so you’re operating with a head voice. Give me a scale and I’ll tell you what you are.”

“A scale?” Mabel asked, cocking her head to the side. “Like, on the piano?”

“Like from _The Sound of Music,”_ Sam answered with a grin. “Do-re-mi and all that.”

“Oh, okay,” Mabel acknowledged, taking a deep breath and straightening her back before she started to sing out. _“Do-rey-me-fah-so-lah-tee-dough!”_ Her voice, painfully high, seemed more like that of a seabird’s blasting out across the waves.

“Not bad!” Sam congratulated her as Mabel tried to catch her breath. “But you’re trying to sing too high. Start a little bit lower—there’s nothing wrong with not being a soprano. Frankly, you’re too tall to make that sound good.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Mabel slumped over, glaring at him.

“I mean that in the best way,” Sam answered, bending over and drawing close to Mabel’s face. “There’s no benefit to ignoring unpleasant realities. What’s important is doing the best with what you have.”

“You’re right,” Mabel acknowledged, straightening back up. She could have sung better if she were standing, but she didn’t want to do anything to disrupt the delicate balance of the repertoire that she and Sam were building. “A little lower, you said?”

“A little lower,” Sam confirmed, nodding with a cockeyed smirk as he started to strum the ukulele. “Start whenever you’re ready.” Mabel took another deep breath.

 _“Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-dooo!”_ she sang out again, this time operating within her register and holding out the final note—she could already tell that she sounded better. Sam’s chords on the ukulele increased in pitch with her voice, but Mabel was surprised when he didn’t stop.

Instead, Sam kept playing, and started to roll into the next verse of _“Riptide.”_ Mabel looked at him in confusion, but he nodded and encouraged her to keep singing. Sam closed his eyes and listened as Mabel began to croon out the second verse, paying attention to the tiny starts and stutters in her voice.

_“There’s this movie that I think you’ll like…_

_This guy decides to quit his job and head to New York City,_

_this cowboy’s running from himself…_

_and she’s been living on the highest shelf…_

_Ah-ooh-ooh-ooh, ah-ahh-oh,_

_and they come unstuck!”_

“Okay!” Sam interrupted her, stopping his playing and raising a hand. “Much better. The only other big thing that I’m noticing is that you don’t really seem to be… into it, if that makes sense.”

“Into it?” Mabel asked in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“This is a fun song,” Sam continued, tilting his head from side to side. “You have to throw yourself into it, and the Mabel I know wouldn’t hesitate to do that, especially with no one else around. You’ve got to feel the song in your spirit.”

“I guess I’m just kind of distracted,” Mabel sighed, turning back around and draping herself over the railing again. “Having you here doesn’t really help.”

“What did I do?” Sam laughed. “I hope I haven’t offended you somehow. I promise that you can be yourself around me. I like you as you are.” Mabel felt her heart pounding, torn between the promise and limits of the word ‘like’ that he had just used.

“I’m just a little embarrassed,” Mabel shrugged. “You saved my life today by dragging me out of the ocean. And thanks for that, by the way.”

“Oh, I didn’t save your life,” Sam sniffed. “You were just a little surprised by the engine falling next to you. You could have swum back to the boat just fine if you had a minute to cool down.”

“Still,” Mabel mumbled. “Thanks.”

“Any time,” Sam answered. “I’d swim out to save you even if there hadn’t just been a teleportation accident.”

“Such a gentleman,” Mabel rolled her eyes.

“That’s what my dad raised me as,” Sam grumbled to himself, though loud enough for Mabel to hear. She turned to look at him, leaning closer to the legs of his lounge chair. Her expression, eyes shining in the moonlight, was one of tenderness and compassion.

“Sam, you’re so much better than your dad that it’s not even funny,” she said resolutely. “You know what’s funny? Farm animals wearing sweaters.”

“You’re right, Mabel,” Sam answered, a thin smile cracking his dour expression. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“No problem,” Mabel shrugged, spinning back around to look out at the ocean. “You save me, and I save you. That’s how these things work.”

“What things?” Sam asked in confusion.

“Come on!” Mabel announced, barreling over his question. She was happy that he couldn’t see her face. “Let’s give the song one more chorus. I promise I’ll put my spirit into it this time. But you have to sing with me!”

“Oh…” Sam answered as he tried to get his bearings, shifting his grip on the ukulele and starting to strum. “That seems fair.”

Sam and Mabel started to tap their feet in unison as the chorus approached. When they started to sing, their voices were rough and discordant as they mixed and mingled in the air earnestly for the first time—Mabel’s impromptu serenade from the stern of the ship hardly counted.

_“Lady, running down to the riptide,_

_taken away to the dark side,_

_I wanna be your left hand man._

_I love you when you’re singing that song_

_and, I got a lump in my throat,_

_‘cause you’re gonna sing the words wrong.”_

By the time they reached the end of the chorus, they had heard the inconsistencies in their voices and corrected for them. Blending together in unison, their individual voices seemed to fade into a single song. Soon, however, the chorus ended, and those final strains vanished in the night air above the ocean. Sam’s steady picking at the ukulele was the only sign of music.

“Better?” Mabel replied, bending backwards to look at Sam upside down.

“Much better,” he smiled, shaking his head at Mabel’s antics. “And that’s just with one minor lesson. Imagine how good we could be with more.”

“I have to teach you knitting first,” Mabel pointed out, tapping her toes against the outer wall of the cabin below them.

“I’ll try not to stab myself,” Sam chuckled.

“A little stabbing here and there isn’t a deal breaker,” Mabel shrugged. “Both in knitting and in life.” To that, Sam was silent, though Mabel could almost feel the smile on his face.

Once more, there was quiet in the wheelhouse, with only the sound of the whistling wind for company. Mabel looked down at her feet, clad in small pink socks, gently bouncing against the cabin.

Something needed to be said, but she wasn’t sure what the right words could possibly be. She still wasn’t sure whether Sam liked her like she liked him, but they had made some progress tonight. The best thing she could do would be to convince him that she was the kind of person who could be loved.

For once in her life, Mabel was at a loss for how to do that. One by one, she cracked her knuckles, thinking back to all the times that she had seen Dipper and Pacifica together. All of the times that one of them had been hurt or insulted, and they had come back together—all they had done was care for each other, and promise to make the future better. Mabel took a deep breath.

“And Sam…” Mabel began, blushing as she turned away from the ocean to look up at Sam. She felt the gentle breeze coming off the sea lift the chocolate cascade of her hair from her shoulders, delicately dancing as she gazed into his rich green eyes. Her eyes sparkled with starlight, cast directly down from the sky and reflected back by the water beneath them. All she was doing was sitting in her pajamas with a boy she liked, singing songs together on the deck of a boat, and hoping. “Thanks. Not just for the trip, or the chorus lessons… just… thanks.”

She looked at him a moment longer than he was expecting—but, as she gazed into his eyes, and he gazed back into hers, something seemed to change. He looked not at her eyes, but into them. His eyes gleamed and his head fell slightly to the side, blonde hair swaying over his temples. He subtly swallowed, and gripped his ukulele a bit tighter.

“No… uh… no problem,” he answered as Mabel turned back around. She listened as he began to individually pluck the strings of his ukulele—it was the kind of absentminded sound that could only be created by someone deep in thought.

Mabel, looking out into the ocean, smiled. There was now something different in Sam’s expression—a realization that he had had, that he hadn’t had before. A shift in perception, and a shift in his soul. Mabel was glad she had come up for a snack.

Behind her, Sam began to strum the ukulele again, hesitantly, before picking up speed. Mabel’s brow furrowed in confusion as she recognized the bridge of the song—they were skipping the first two verses of _“Riptide”_ and picking up where they had left off.

At the moment they reached the lyrics, without a word passing between them, Sam and Mabel began to sing in perfect unison together—Sam’s baritone filling out the bottom register, while Mabel’s high alto rang out crisp, clear, and clean in the night air. 

_"_ _I just wanna, I just wanna know,  
If you're gonna, if you're gonna stay…  
I just gotta, I just gotta know,  
I can't have it, I can't have it any other way._

_“I swear she's destined for the screen,  
closest thing to Michelle Pfeiffer that you've ever seen, oh… _

_“Lady, running down to the riptide,  
taken away to the dark side,  
I wanna be your left hand man.  
I love you when you're singing that song  
and I got a lump in my throat.  
'cause you're gonna sing the words wrong…_

_And I got a lump in my throat,_

_‘cause you’re gonna sing the words wrong.”_

On the sonar screen next to the wheel, a large red blip appeared, and then vanished.


	16. Beach

The inflatable orange raft sighed against the pristine white sand as it slowly slid to a halt. Dipper and Sam, who had each been holding an oar, wiped the sweat from their brows as they set the oars beneath the bench seats.

The beach that the teenagers had just landed on was immaculate—the pale strip of unturned sand separated the dense greenery of the inland palm tree forest and the crystalline sea. The water was so clear that the shadows it cast on the bottom of the ocean could be seen rippling and coursing across the sand. A few dozen feet out to sea, and that sand suddenly gave way to a dense jungle of kelp and seaweed.

“Thanks for the ride,” Pacifica smirked, leaning over to kiss Dipper on the cheek before tentatively stepping out onto the sand, and sighing as she felt it squish between her toes.

“Ditto,” Mabel echoed, her voice unnaturally high as she lightly patted Sam on the shoulder and followed Pacifica. Dipper, looking sideways at Sam’s face, could see his eyes following Mabel as the two girls looked around the isolated beach.

Dipper shook his head, unable to keep a grin off of his face. It was obvious now that Sam had thoughts about Mabel that weren’t entirely based around mere friendship. Dipper had been skeptical of Pacifica’s comments before, but now there was no denying it.

The evidence for the change in Sam’s heart wasn’t just the new look of perpetual confusion in his eyes—Dipper understood that well enough. Coming to terms with the emotions that came with a new relationship was a process that could take days or weeks—which was a shame, given that most opportunities for meeting new people evaporated in minutes.

No, the most obvious evidence for Sam’s newfound affection in Dipper’s mind was the fact that he was choosing to look at Mabel over Pacifica. Mabel was wearing a one piece swimsuit made up of interconnecting panels of red and pink. She had a pale blue towel draped around her neck, and was wearing sunglasses and a bright yellow ball cap. Dipper was proud to see that Mabel had overcome whatever reservations she had had about wearing a swimsuit back in South Carolina, and even he would admit that she was attractive—to the degree that he, as her brother, could admit of such a thing.

As attractive as Mabel was, she paled in comparison to Pacifica. Pacifica was wearing the straw sunhat that she had bought in Charleston—pale gold, with a red ribbon tied around it and a blue flower tucked into the band. The blue flower was accompanied by the sweetgrass rose that Dipper had purchased for her in in Charleston. Her sunglasses glinted in the Bahamian sun, and the sunscreen shone on her skin with a luminescent glow.

The bikini she had chosen to wear was modest—the top looked more like a sports bra, closed at the front with a white zipper. The bottoms weren’t supported by string, instead fully wrapping around her hips. They both shared the same pattern—alternating horizontal bands of eggshell white and teal green. Despite the modesty of the bikini, it still revealed the gentle arc of her thighs and slight inward slope of her stomach.

Dipper couldn’t help but swallow and wipe the sweat from his brow again. Regardless of the fact that Sam had grown up with Pacifica, they weren’t related like he and Mabel were. If Sam was actively choosing to look at Mabel over Pacifica, then he was already in deep.

“Dipper, are you with me?” Sam chuckled, waving his hand in front of Dipper’s blank stare and whistling. Dipper came back to reality with a start, realizing that Sam had already climbed out of the raft and was standing on the beach. “I can’t drag the raft onto the beach with you still in it.”

“Uh… yeah, yeah,” Dipper acknowledged, taking Sam’s outstretched hand and pulling himself to his feet. He tentatively stepped out of the raft, fearing for the soles of his feet—he was barefoot, and the sand had been absorbing heat from the sun all day. However, as he made first contact, he settled his weight onto the beach and realized there was nothing to worry about—it had recently been high tide, and the seawater had cooled the sand down considerably.

Turning around, he and Sam bent down and each grabbed a side of the raft, holding onto the ropes that ran through sockets in the top of it. With no one in it, the raft was light, and the two boys were easily able to drag it up to the tree line, safe from the sea.

They dropped it to the beach with a thud, churning up a small cloud of sand. Brushing it aside, they reached into the raft for the supplies that they had brought with them—Sam carried a blanket and a small cooler full of drinks, while Dipper held a set of bocce balls in a black plastic case and towels for Pacifica and himself. The waves here weren’t large enough to justify bringing the surfboards.

Tucking their burdens under their arms, the boys stepped back out onto the beach and followed the slight trail of footprints that the girls had left behind them. They had started to wander down the beach together, trying to find a suitable location to set up camp for the day. Before they had traveled more than a few steps, however, they heard the horn of the _Stan o’ War II_ echo over the waters, accompanied by the rattling of a massive chain.

Turning their heads, they saw Stan braced at the bow of the ship, hauling up the anchor. Ford, standing stoically in the wheelhouse, was busy at the console. However, as the engines kicked to life and the ship began to recede into the distance, they both took the time to wave back at the teenagers. They all returned the favor, including Mabel and Pacifica further down the coast.

They had arrived at the location of the anomaly early in the morning, but a quick survey of the area revealed that there was nothing obviously weird about it. Whatever was creating the large red-orange disturbance on the global weirdness map, it was either hidden, or hiding.

The _Stan o’ War II_ had anchored itself off the coast of Little Inagua, an uninhabited island in the southern Bahamas. When Pacifica caught sight of it in the distance, she had immediately made it her mission to persuade the others to spend the day on the island. After all, if she had sacrificed her planned vacation in Charleston for this, she was going to make sure that she got her day on a Bahamian beach.

Sam and Dipper had been hesitant to leave the ship, but Ford had assured them that it would be okay. The teenagers could spend their day on the beach together, while he and Stan took the boat around the island and other points of interest, trying to see if they could spot anything interesting. They would come back to pick up the castaways at sunset—and, after all, Dipper had his Weslee in case anything went wrong.

Sam had been convinced by this, but it took Pacifica whispering in Dipper’s ear about her new bikini to win his approval. After Dipper had extracted a promise from Ford that the grunkles wouldn’t engage with any anomalies they happened to find, and would just document them for later, he had agreed, and happily thrown himself into the effort of preparing for their beach day.

While the girls had busied themselves with packing and getting dressed, he and Sam had inflated another emergency raft and figured out how to easily pilot it. It was small, but it would serve to get the four of them to the island and back—the draft of the _Stan o’ War II_ was too deep to take them in directly.

Once the girls were done preparing, he and Sam had quickly changed into their own swimwear. Dipper wore exactly the same things he had on the beach in South Carolina, while Sam opted for a looser pair of swim trunks, decorated with a triangular pattern of sky and navy blue. There wouldn’t be any surfing, so there was no need for performance wear.

After a ten minute row to the shore, they had slid onto the coast of Little Inagua—uninhabited and isolated, it was perfect for a day of leisure and relaxation.

On the water, the _Stan o’ War II_ rounded the edge of the island and vanished from view. Returning his focus to the girls ahead of them, Dipper saw that they had slowed to a stop beneath the branches of a palm tree that hung slightly farther out over the sand, providing the cover of shade.

Mabel took out her towel and started to flap it in the breeze, trying to spread it out on the beach but only succeeding in churning up a cloud of sand. Pacifica coughed and turned away, thumping a closed fist on her chest as Dipper and Sam approached them.

Dipper smiled as he walked up to his girlfriend, only slightly grimacing at his reflection in her pale pink sunglasses. Pacifica grinned at her boyfriend, though she recoiled at her image in his amber aviators—each was happy with the other, but less so with themselves. Pacifica knew she was beautiful, of course, but the amount of sunscreen she had to apply to avoid burning made her look as though she had tripped and fallen into a tub of lard.

“Is this going to work?” Pacifica asked, turning and extending a hand towards the site that she and Mabel had picked. Mabel, having finally realized that it was better to just lay one end of the towel down and then stretch it open, flopped back onto it with a sigh.

“I think this will be just fine,” Dipper nodded, looking around. He didn’t see anything dangerous or weird—the underbrush in the palm forest was thin enough here that it would be obvious if something was emerging from the woods. The water was clear, the sun was shining, and there was no sound other than the crashing waves, the rustling of the palm fronts in the sea breeze, and the sharp cawing of birds as they flew overhead.

“Good,” Sam replied, digging a slight furrow in the sand with his feet and setting the cooler down within it. “Because you weren’t the one carrying a box full of liquid. That stuff’s heavy!”

“And the macho man Samuel Southeast can’t handle it?” chided Pacifica as she took her towel from Dipper and spread it out on the sand next to Mabel’s. She sat down on it, but didn’t recline. Instead, she leaned forward and started to rub the sunscreen on her legs that hadn’t yet absorbed into her skin. Dipper noticed the gentle pinching of her waist, and quickly refocused his attention.

“The macho man can handle more than you can,” Sam laughed, stepping over Pacifica and laying out his own towel next to Mabel. Dipper noticed Mabel’s eyes open beneath her sunglasses and follow Sam’s progress, though she took special care not to move her head.

“Of course you can,” Pacifica fired back, placing her arms behind her and leaning against them. “You’re a big strong man, and I’m a delicate woman. It would be improper for me to engage in such brute and crude physical labor.” Dipper could have sworn that she was puffing out her chest as she spoke, straining against the suddenly fragile white zipper of her top.

“So Sam,” Dipper interrupted, refocusing everyone’s attention onto him as he held the case of bocce balls in front of his swim trunks. He wasn’t doing it out of jealously towards Sam—he knew mocking banter when he heard it, especially now that Sam was more invested with Mabel. It was more an effort to get Pacifica to stop making herself look so obviously attractive, so things would be less difficult for Dipper. “How exactly do you play this?”

“It’s really easy,” Sam answered, always eager for an opportunity to teach someone. Pacifica shot a knowing glance at Dipper, who answered with a shrug. Mabel sat up as Sam took the case of bocce balls from Dipper and opened them. “I would have brought a volleyball instead, but we’d have to set up a net.”

“This works fine!” Mabel chirped. “I already know how to play volleyball—plus, Dipper sucks at it. He’s never beaten me.”

“The great Dipper can’t hit a ball?” Pacifica asked sarcastically, opening her mouth in an expression of mocking shock.

“Hey, I’ve still got her beat on chess, checkers, ping-pong, and croquet,” Dipper pointed out. “She’s just better at violently smacking things.”

“Wait, how can you be bad at croquet but good at mini-golf?” Pacifica asked, cocking her head to the side. “They’re basically the same thing.”

“It’s one of life’s great mysteries,” answered Mabel, shrugging. “The golf balls are just nicer.”

“Well, if you’re good at either golf or croquet, then you ought to be good at bocce,” Sam chimed in as he pulled a small white ball out of the center of the case. He tossed it to Mabel, who snatched it out of the air with ease. She tossed it from hand to hand, surprised by the weight of it.

“Enlighten them,” Pacifica offered as Sam picked the two larger, patterned blue balls out of the case and handed them to her. She already knew how to play, of course—it was one of the many beach games that Sam had taught her, and strangely, it was one her parents approved of. It was somewhat classier than the grunting and sweating that came along with volleyball.

“The rules are simple,” Sam continued. He handed the set of green balls to Dipper, and the red ones to Mabel. He kept the yellow ones for himself, and tossed them from hand to hand absentmindedly as he spoke. “The first player gets to throw out that small white ball, also known as the jack. Then, the goal is just to roll the larger, colored balls as close to the jack as possible. Whoever’s closest wins that round.”

Dipper weighed the green balls in his hands, surprised at their heft. They were clearly made of plastic, but must have had centers of stone or concrete for how heavy they were.

“And,” Sam continued, “you can play individually or on teams. But, since we have four colored balls, and there are four of us, I think individuals would be best to start with.”

“Sounds good to me!” Mabel replied, springing to her feet. Pacifica, grunting with the effort, stood up as well—her hands were too small to hold both of the balls at once, so she had one orb in each hand. She swung her arms, pleased with the weight.

Mabel advanced towards Sam with the golf ball sized jack and offered it to him as he closed the case and set it down on the sand. Sam looked at her in confusion for a moment before shaking his head.

“You can throw it first,” he offered, nodding towards the jack. “It’s not that hard to do. There’s nothing really technical to it.”

“Oh,” Mabel replied, cocking her head to the side as she tested the weight. A mischievous grin spread across her face as she thought about it, clearly contemplating exactly how absurdly far she could throw the ball down the beach.

“You can’t throw it more than sixty feet,” Sam interjected, smirking as he did so. He had immediately recognized Mabel’s intentions. “On a regulation court, it would be ninety feet. But since the sand here is uneven, you get sixty.”

“Ugh, fine,” Mabel scoffed, shaking her head in disappointment as she turned and walked out from beneath the shade of the palm tree and onto the beach. She led the way towards the flattest stretch of sand that she could find, as the others followed her.

Mabel turned and gestured at the beach, showing that this was where she wanted to play. She was caught off guard, however, by the fact that Sam was now shirtless.

He had shed his white t-shirt and tossed it back onto his towel, the fabric barely clinging to the sunscreen that coated his skin as he pulled it off. His muscles weren’t incredibly well defined, but the abs were undeniably there, rippling beneath his stomach. The wispy beginnings of chest hair sat in the center of his torso. Mabel swallowed. She didn’t even notice that Dipper had removed his shirt as well—the patchwork of scars and lean muscles that covered her brother were, to her, incomparable to the smooth sheen of Sam.

Mabel immediately looked down at the beach as Sam approached her, dragging his foot in the sand to draw a line of play. Much like in bowling, they couldn’t step over the foul line.

“Alright,” Sam nodded, stepping back and letting Mabel have the line alone. “Have at it!” Mabel tried her best to keep her gaze fixed on the improvised court in front of them, but found it increasingly difficult.

Mabel shook her head and smiled as she dropped her two red balls into the sand next to her, so that she was only holding the jack. She stepped back from the line and closed her right eye, sizing up the beach before her—which also had the benefit of temporarily blocking Sam from her line of sight.

With a grunt, she took two large steps forward and swung her arm, launching the jack almost straight up into the air—if she couldn’t throw it far, she would throw it high. Every set of eyes on the beach was searching for the jack as it got lost in the bright blue of the sky.

A few seconds later, they caught sight of it as it plummeted through the air and impacted the sand with a thud about thirty feet from them. It bounced twice, continuing to move as it finally rolled to a stop forty-five feet away.

“Not bad,” Sam said with a smile, lightly clapping. Mabel turned and bowed dramatically, picking up her red balls and stepping backwards. She was always fond of praise, and even more so when it came from Sam. She moved quickly, trying to hide her blush. “Now Dipper, as the most amateur person here who didn’t throw the jack, you’re up first.”

“Okay,” Dipper sighed, gripping one of the balls tightly in his right hand. The other one he held loosely in his left. “Now, this is my first time, so don’t judge too harshly.”

“I’m going to judge even more harshly now,” Pacifica whispered, just loud enough for Dipper to hear and cast her a playfully annoyed scowl. Taking a step back, Dipper then lunged forward and tossed his first ball down the beach. It bounced once before settling into a smooth roll down the sand.

“Stop, stop, stop, stop!” Dipper cried desperately as the ball reached the jack and kept on moving—the strangely heavy weight kept it rolling, easily fifty feet down the beach. The gentle slope of the sand pulled it slightly to the right, even farther away from the destination. “Dang it.”

“Such foul language,” Pacifica smirked, stepping up behind Dipper and wrapping her arms around his neck. She kissed in between his shoulder blades as she pulled him backwards. Dipper blushed even more harshly than Mabel as he felt Pacifica’s bikini top scrape against his skin. “Don’t worry, you’ll get another chance.”

“But I’m up first,” Sam announced, tossing one of his yellow balls in the air as he stepped up to the line. Mabel watched intently as he crouched down on the balls of his feet, looking at the slope of the beach with a practiced eye.

He inhaled sharply, and exhaled slowly as he brought his arm back. Without a noise, he swung the ball down and released it a mere half inch above the sand. It didn’t bounce at all, instead sliding smoothly onto the beach and leaving a small furrow behind as it raced towards the jack.

Like Dipper, Sam had added slightly too much power. His ball sailed past the jack, though it came to a halt a mere five feet away from the goal, unlike Dipper’s ten.

“It’s been a while,” Sam apologized, cracking his knuckles as he stepped back. “Pacifica.”

“Okay, okay,” Pacifica nodded, raising her arms in the air as she spun dramatically, advancing towards the line. “Let me show you how a real professional does it.” Just like everyone else, she held the unused ball in her left hand behind her back, while she tested the weight of the other one with her right. She crouched and gently rocked back and forth, trying to feel out the motion that she would make to cast the ball. Satisfied, she inhaled and threw her arm forward, anchoring her feet in the sand with a twist of her ankles as she did so.

As she moved, Dipper’s jaw dropped as time seemed to slow down. The only possible cause of it was Pacifica, as all of his attention was focused on her, his every sense dialed to eleven as he drank in every detail of her body, this place, this time.

She was as graceful as a Greek statue, the taut muscles in her legs and arms cast in glorious movement. The ridges of her spine poked out through the otherwise immaculate slope of her back, the pale, slowly browning skin marked by droplets of salt and sweat. Her hair, reflecting the sun as much as the sand, swished with the same rustle of the palm fronds as it was swung through the air by her motion. Her hands, delicate and precise, moved with purpose and grace as they released the blue sphere at the perfect moment to send it spiraling across the sand.

The ball rolled to a stop two inches from the jack.

“Well,” Pacifica said, straightening up and turning to face the others, her hands on her hips. “Not a bad start.”

Dipper was speechless as Pacifica approached him. He barely noticed Mabel stepping up to the line with her first ball, tossing it down the beach with a jerky swing of her arm.

“Close your mouth, honey,” Pacifica chastised, placing her hand on Dipper’s chin and gently lifting his mouth closed. “You’ll catch flies.”

“You really shouldn’t exist,” Dipper answered, shaking his head as he tossed his one remaining ball in the air. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“First, ouch,” Pacifica said, holding a hand to her heart. “That’s an awfully mean thing to say out of nowhere.”

“No, no!” Dipper quickly corrected. “I just mean that, statistically, it seems impossible that there could be someone like you. The face, the personality, the hair, the brain, the legs, the—”

“Boobs?” Pacifica smirked, her previous distress completely wiped away by Dipper’s effusive compliments.

“Well, I wasn’t going to say that in public,” Dipper blushed, rubbing the back of his head. “I’m a gentleman, after all.”

“You’re a gentleman, and it’s your turn to bowl,” Pacifica answered, pushing Dipper forward by the small of his back—a not insignificant part of him wished that her hand had ventured lower.

As Dipper advanced towards the line, he saw Mabel and Sam exchanging a knowing glance with each other—they were both in agreement that he and Pacifica were being gross. Dipper didn’t particularly care. There was nothing wrong with being affectionate with his girlfriend. In fact, he was pleased that Sam and Mabel had something they could join together in mutual mockery over.

Dipper took a deep breath and, palming his last ball, looked out at the court. Mabel’s bowl had been better than Sam’s, but not quite as accurate as Pacifica’s—it sat about a foot away from the jack. Adjusting for the weight of the ball, and taking special care not to throw it with as much force as he had before, Dipper bent forward and cast the ball onto the sand.

He didn’t feel the need to plead this time as the ball started to slow, right on schedule. He knew that he wasn’t going to win this round, but he was content with the marked improvement he was showing. He turned around with a satisfied smile on his face as the ball kept rolling, ready to let the rest of the game play out.

“What the heck, dipstick?!” Mabel shouted at him as he turned around. “Why would you do that?” Dipper turned around in a panic, unsure of what she was talking about. He immediately spotted the object of her ire—his ball had turned sharply at the last second and collided with hers, forcing it away from the jack and sending it rolling across the sand.

“Mabel,” Dipper answered, rolling his eyes as Sam stepped up to the line. “I promise you that I don’t have the skill to do anything like that intentionally.” The excuse did little to erase the scowl from her face.

“Don’t worry Mabel,” Sam interrupted as he closed one eye and sized up the field. “I’ll take care of it for you.” Dipper and Mabel both watched in amazement as he cast the ball onto the sand with ferocious speed, racing past the jack and slamming directly into Dipper’s ball with a sharp crack. Dipper’s green ball was sent skittering across the beach, finally slowing to a halt beyond the first ball he had cast.

“At least someone here is a gentleman,” Mabel smirked, curtsying to Sam as he turned around and replied with a bow, similar to the one Mabel had offered him earlier.

“I’m just sorry I couldn’t knock your ball closer to the jack,” Sam apologized. “I’m good, but I’m not that good. Not at these distances, at least. “

“If it makes you feel any better,” Pacifica replied, turning her final blue ball over in her hands as she stepped up to the line, “it wouldn’t have made any difference anyway.”

With that, Pacifica lunged forward and threw her ball out towards the others. Dipper’s mind, now concerned with the arc of the ball, didn’t focus in on Pacifica as it had previously.

For a second, it seemed as though her ball would swing far to the left. After a moment, however, the spin on the ball became apparent as it started to trace a gentle arc towards the jack. Slowing down dramatically over the final feet, it came to rest against her first ball, less than an inch now from the goal.

“What can I say?” Pacifica continued with a proud and gloating grin as she turned around and stood next to Dipper, her hips swinging as she did so. “I guess mini-golf skill is multipurpose.”

Dipper could see the fury in Mabel’s eyes—not a malevolent anger, but simply the desire to show up the bragging blonde. She stepped forward to the line powerfully, rearing back her hand in preparation to throw the final ball.

Before she was able to do so, however, she felt a hand on her shoulder and was pulled to a halt. Turning her head, she saw Sam shaking his head.

“You can’t do this angrily,” he cautioned her with a gleam in his eye. “If you want to beat her, take a deep breath and do it with your skill.” Closing his eyes, he lifted his other arm to his chest and breathed in, slowly lowering it as he breathed out. Mabel found herself automatically breathing in unison along with him.

“Thanks,” Mabel replied with a newfound focus in her eyes.

“No problem,” Sam answered. “Now go show her what for.”

“Umm…” Mabel continued, glancing down to her shoulder. Sam’s hand was still there, resting on her skin with an easy comfort. She could feel the pattern of callouses on his fingers, though his skin was still incredibly soft.

“Oh!” Sam apologized, quickly jerking his hand away. Mabel felt the rush of cool ocean air over where his hand had been, and wished that he would put it back. “Sorry for that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mabel winked at him, turning away before blushing intensely. Her normal bravado when it came to boys seemed undermined by her own heart and stomach.

For the moment, however, she had the game of bocce ball to focus on. Taking a deep breath, just as Sam had instructed, she stepped forward and slung the ball forward with an easy, physical grace.

It coursed directly towards Pacifica’s balls, and appeared destined to knock both of them aside. Over the last few feet, however, it slowed down dramatically, losing most of its momentum. It impacted the ball closest to the jack, which in turn sent Pacifica’s first ball rolling across the sand. A red and a blue ball sat resting against each other, almost equidistant from the jack.

Almost before the ball had stopped moving, Mabel and Pacifica both sprinted forward towards the end of the field, eager to see where things had finally ended up. Dipper and Sam, hands swinging easily by their sides, advanced more slowly.

“I won!” Mabel cheered as she leaned over the jack, trying to see if her or Pacifica’s ball was closer.

“No you didn’t!” Pacifica insisted, hands on her hips and a pout on her lips. “My ball is obviously closer!”

“What are you talking about?” Mabel asked in confusion. “Don’t you wear glasses? You have no idea what you’re seeing.”

“I’m wearing contacts!” Pacifica defended herself, before turning and seeing Dipper and Sam approaching.

“Finally, some impartial judges,” Mabel sighed in relief. “Since both of you obviously didn’t win, tell us who’s closer.”

Nodding their assent, Dipper and Sam began to stalk around the ball, closing their eyes and trying to measure it out. By all accounts, it was extraordinarily close. However, after a few moments of inspection, they reached a conclusion. Looking at each other, they mouthed their answers for confirmation before turning to the girls.

Pacifica had a dour expression on her face, standing with her arms crossed, while Mabel had a grin spreading from ear to ear and her knees buckled against each other.

“Pacifica’s got it,” Sam announced, hanging his head as he pointed to the blonde.

“Ha, yes!” Pacifica celebrated, raising her arms in the air in victory as Mabel’s mouth opened in shock. “I knew it!”

“Grr, fine!” Mabel conceded. “But I’ve got you beat on the next one!”

“Well, as the winner of the previous round, Pacifica gets to throw out the jack,” Sam continued, reaching down to pick up the small white ball. He tossed it to Pacifica, who dusted off all of the sand that had accumulated on its surface. Sam and Dipper picked up the colored balls and began passing them out again.

“Should I throw it back down to where we were?” asked Pacifica, pointing back towards the overhanging palm trees with their towels.

“Nah,” Dipper answered, shaking his head. “That sand’s all ruined with footprints. Let’s keep moving up the beach.”

Pacifica nodded as she turned around and walked a few steps farther along the coast. She drew the next line of play in the sand herself.

She gently spun the jack around in her hand as she stepped forward, bending down and casting it down onto the field of play, instead of up in the air as Mabel had. Her wrist snapped to the right at the last second, adding a large amount of spin on the ball as it streaked across the sand.

Gradually, it arced up and away from the ocean, finally coming to a rest around fifty feet away from them.

“Alright,” Sam announced as he handed Mabel her balls. Dipper did the same for Mabel. “Since you were the farthest away last time, Dipper, you get to go first.”

“I’ll do better this time!” Dipper announced as he stepped up to the foul line, spinning the green bocce ball in his hand to clean off the accumulated sand.

And, he did do better. Everyone improved as their balls arced closer and closer towards the jack, the small amount of practice they had had allowing them to adjust for their previous shortcomings. Mabel’s second ball actually came so close as to be resting against the jack itself.

Within a few short minutes, it came time for Pacifica’s final throw.

“Come on, Paz!” Mabel chided as the blonde stepped up to the line. Pacifica couldn’t help but roll her eyes. She clearly wasn’t putting as much stake in the outcome of the game as Mabel was, but that didn’t mean that she was going to go easy on her. “Show me how much better you are than me!”

Pacifica rolled her eyes as she bent down and cast—instantly, Mabel’s mockery stopped as all eyes focused on the arc of the ball. It traveled directly towards the jack, which was blocked by Mabel’s second throw. With a crack, Pacifica’s ball hit Mabel’s, knocking it into the jack—Pacifica’s ball then recoiled, and bounded back.

“Congratulations,” Pacifica offered, turning to Mabel and extending her hand. Pacifica bore no ill will towards her—even a professional bocce player would have had trouble when the jack was as boxed in as Mabel had made it. Mabel gave her an intense, exuberant handshake before turning and racing towards the jack—she wanted confirmation of her victory.

Pacifica cocked her head to the side and looked at Dipper in mock disbelief. He could do nothing but shrug and smile and how invested his sister had become in the game. However, the smile fell from his face instantly as Mabel uttered a sharp cry of pain and fell face-first onto the sand.

Just as they had when she had cartwheeled onto the sweet gum ball, the other teenagers raced to huddle around her as she pushed herself into a sitting position. She was spitting and wiping the sand from her eyes as they gathered.

“What is it?” Sam asked in concern, looking her up and down. Other than her grabbing her foot, there was no obvious sign of injury. The entire front of her foot was, however, covered in sand.

“I stubbed my toe on something,” Mabel acknowledged with a grimace. “Not a big deal.”

“Yeah, well, you were running,” Sam smiled. “That would hurt like hell. Let me look at it.”

Mabel gently removed her hand from her toes, allowing Sam to look at it. She drew in a sharp breath as he grabbed her foot tenderly. They had no medical supplies, so there was nothing that he could do, but the amount of care he was showing her was astonishingly intimate.

“You’ll have a nasty bruise,” Sam finally pronounced, “but you’ll get to keep the leg.”

“What a relief, Doctor,” Mabel rolled her eyes with a smile. Sam stood up and helped her to her feet—for a moment, Mabel stumbled and placed her hands on Sam’s chest to steady herself.

Almost immediately, she flushed as red as a cherry tomato and turned around, looking at Pacifica and Dipper for relief. Dipper was crouched down on the beach, digging through the sand with his fingertips like a child, making him useless.

“I wouldn’t trust his opinion,” Pacifica chided, stepping to Mabel’s aid and throwing her hips to one side. “I have it on good authority that he’s never been to medical school.”

“Neither have you, and you sewed Dipper’s leg up after he got stabbed by the skeleton moose,” Mabel pointed out with a smirk.

“It was a dyre,” Pacifica replied, rolling her eyes. “If anything, it was a skeleton deer. Nothing like a moose.”

“As much as I appreciate you all reflecting on my medical history,” Dipper grunted as he dug his fingers into the sand, “I think I may have found something here.” Whatever Mabel had tripped on had been poking out of the sand enough for him to find it again.

“Like what?” Sam asked, crouching next to Dipper and joining him in digging. Soon, they had slipped their fingers under a strange slab of rock. With a simultaneous groan, they flipped it out of the ground, revealing the underside in a shower of sand.

“Like this,” Dipper smiled, standing up and dusting his hands of. Sam’s face was a breathless expression of wonder.

The slab wasn’t that big or heavy—it had merely been buried in the sand. But on the underside, almost perfectly preserved, was an absolute wealth of fossilized sea animals. Ammonites, their delicate spirals frozen in stone, seemed as though they could have been alive yesterday. Several of their shells were overlaid by what were clearly impressions of ancient plant life.

“See, this doesn’t make any sense,” Pacifica smiled as she marveled at the find. “You tell me that I shouldn’t exist, but you’re somehow lucky enough to just stumble onto something like this?”

“Weird seeks weird,” Dipper shrugged in response.

“And you’re the weirdest of them all,” Mabel nodded.

“You’re the one who tripped on it,” Dipper fired back as he scooped his fingers under the stone and lifted it. It wasn’t more than ten pounds. “We need to take this back to camp so we can bring it to Ford. There’s probably nothing anomalous about it, but it’s still an amazing fossil.”

“Maybe there are more out here!” Sam enthused. “I mean sure, one is good, but can you imagine if we came back with two?”

“I take it you want to keep looking?” Dipper answered with a grin. “I’d be up for that, if you girls are,” he continued, turning towards Pacifica and Mabel.

“Umm…” Pacifica answered, looking Mabel up and down. “If it’s all the same to you, I think we’ll go back to the towels. Mabel needs to get cleaned up, and I could do with a little sunbathing.”

“I can get cleaned up right now!” Mabel announced, turning and sprinting into the ocean. The water here was warm and welcoming, and received her with open arms as she dove into it. The sand that caked her face and swimsuit fell away as she planted her feet on the seafloor and sprang into the air. “The water’s fine!”

However, as she called out, she was unable to conceal the grimace on her face at having just ran on her injured toe.

“Correction,” Pacifica shouted after her, “you need to rest and relax a little. And so do I.” With that, she reached out and took the fossilized slab from Dipper before he could complain.

“Are you sure you’ve got that?” Dipper asked as she hoisted it onto her shoulder.

“Dipper, I once threw a skeleton moose through an interdimensional portal,” Pacifica answered. “I can handle this.”

“It wasn’t a skeleton moose!” Mabel called out from the ocean. Dipper just rolled his eyes—he knew how enjoyable it was for Pacifica to chastise someone for doing something, only to do exactly the same thing. It made her seem obnoxious and bratty at first—but then, human.

“I’ll have Mabel get the bocce balls,” Pacifica assured Dipper, patting him on the arm. “We’ll be fine. You two paleontologists see if you can find anything else.”

“Okay,” Dipper finally relented. “Mabel!” he shouted out to his sister. “Behave!”

“I have done nothing wrong this entire trip!” Mabel fired back. “Make sure you don’t get eaten by an eight-headed fish!”

Dipper waved at her before turning around, beginning to advance up the beach. Dipper could hear the splashing as Mabel returned to the shore to gather the bocce balls, and noticed that Sam lingered a moment longer to watch her before walking quickly behind Dipper to make up his lost ground.

At an easy and measured paced, the two boys started to make their way up the beach, eyes downcast, scanning the sand for any strange prominences or overly flat spots that could mark the site of another discovery. A few hundred feet ahead them, the beach turned to the right.

“Is there really such a thing as an eight-headed fish?” Sam finally asked, clearing his throat after a few minutes of silence.

“There’s an eight-headed bear,” Dipper shrugged as they advanced. “That seems even more fantastical than a fish, so I’d say the fish is definitely possible. I don’t think Mabel has any direct evidence of it, though.”

“Does Mabel have direct evidence of any of the things she talks about?” Sam scoffed. Dipper briefly cast his eyes to the side, looking at Sam. He now knew fully well why Sam was asking these questions, but wouldn’t press him on it—Sam could talk at his own pace.

“Not in the sense that Ford or I do,” Dipper answered. “She doesn’t journal or anything, but she’s helped me out more times than I care to count. The way she sees things is just so unique and… irreplaceable. Maybe it has to do with all of the sugar and caffeine.”

“Maybe…” Sam continued before trailing off. “Can I ask a personal question?” He shuffled his feet slightly lower in the sand, churning up more of it with every step.

“Depends on how personal,” Dipper replied, unfazed.

“It’s not actually about you,” Sam clarified, cocking his head to the side. “Does Mabel have a boyfriend or anything?” Dipper burst out into laughter.

“That depends on what you mean by ‘anything’,” he chuckled as they approached the bend in the sand. “She’s definitely had crushes on lots of guys—as a matter of fact, I know of some that she has right now. But no, she’s never had anything that I would call ‘a boyfriend.’”

“But does she have a guy she spends time with… non-platonically?” Sam asked. His voice was shaky as he talked, frightened that Dipper would see through him, and completely unaware that he already had.

“No,” Dipper answered firmly. He had thought that his previous answer was clear enough, but it was obvious that Sam wanted to avoid ambiguities as much as he did. “No, she doesn’t.”

“Okay then,” Sam continued as the two boys rounded the curve in the beach, obscuring the girls from view. “I’m going to level with you. I’m in deep shit.”

“Hmm,” Dipper replied, his voice level. “Like… financial shit? Because I can’t help with that. You’ll have to deal with the IRS on your own.”

“No,” Sam scoffed. “You know what I mean.” Dipper was unable to keep a smile from cracking his lips. “I think I like Mabel.”

“You think?” Dipper asked, asking the same question of Sam that Pacifica had asked of him last summer.

“I know,” Sam answered. He paused, as though considering the weight of what he had just said—and then nodded in confirmation.

“Oh. Okay then,” Dipper shrugged.

“What?” Sam asked in disbelief. “That’s it? No shock, no surprise, no awe? Just okay?”

“Yeah, man,” Dipper continued, smiling more broadly now. “You’re a good guy. If you think you can keep up with her, then go for it.”

“But you know how my family is,” Sam murmured to himself, unable to see how Dipper could be so laid back about this—he had seen Dipper blow up with anger before, and this seemed like the kind of thing that could trigger it.

“They’re exactly the same as Pacifica’s family,” Dipper answered, his voice reassuringly firm. “And she and I get along just fine. In fact, your family is probably better because you have dogs.”

“So… you really don’t have a problem with it?” Sam asked a final time, seeking confirmation.

“I have no problem with you trying to do whatever it is you’re going to do,” Dipper replied, waving his hand. “You’ve got to win her over first. Once you do that, then we’ll talk.”

“Oh yeah,” Sam sighed in concern. “I’ve got to do that. You’re her brother. Do you have any advice?”

“What does the great Samuel Southeast need advice from me for?” Dipper laughed. “You told me you had private school girlfriends a couple years ago. Mabel is much easier to impress than that. Honestly, naming your dog Cornbread got you halfway there.”

“And I told you that one of my previous girlfriends was a cracked egg, and that the other was a root vegetable,” Sam reiterated. “Mabel’s not like them. She’s different. She’s more… human.”

“Then just be human,” Dipper shrugged. “Be yourself. I like you well enough; I don’t see why she would be any different.” Dipper knew full well that Mabel already liked Sam, despite her worries and insecurities. Now that Sam returned her affections, the only thing that would be needed to seal the deal, barring any unforeseen developments, was a confession—but Dipper didn’t want to make it too easy.

“Human’s a tall order,” Sam murmured to himself. “Really, I don’t know where to start with her. I know I like her, but we haven’t spent enough time together for me to really get to know her.”

“Fine,” Dipper answered, rolling his eyes. “I’ll give you a hint. You can ask her to do something crafty, or go out on an adventure. Just make sure that, at some point, you surprise her with either dessert or coffee.”

“I…” Sam mumbled, before a smile broke out on his face. “I think I know a few places back in Charleston.”

“Good,” Dipper smiled back at him. “Just be prepared for some really loud wardrobe choices.”

“I’m hoping for it,” Sam chuckled.

Dipper shook his head in disbelief—everything seemed to be coming together perfectly. He was moderately surprised by the fact that someone could actually see charm and the potential for romance in Mabel—and he was even more surprised by the fact that that person was Sam. But, if they had a chance at the happiness he shared with Pacifica, he would encourage it with open arms.

Seemingly content, with the wheels turning in his head and unable to wipe the smile off of his face, Sam returned his gaze to the sand. For a few seconds, he scanned it for fossils, before furrowing his brow and looking up—there was something on the horizon, though he wasn’t quite sure what.

“Hey, I think I see something up there!” Sam announced, pointing towards the beach ahead of them. Indeed, there appeared to be a series of small ridges running from the water to the tree line. Sam broke out into a sprint as he raced down the sand, eager to explore the mysteries ahead. Dipper, shaking his head, chased after him.

As fast as Sam was, Dipper was faster—his expertise in running away from large things that wanted to eat him had made him extremely fleet of foot. Dipper caught up with the older boy just as they approached the ridge and slowed to a halt.

Quickly, their eyes scanned the features in the sand in front of them, trying to figure out what they were looking at—it was obvious there were no fossils here.

The sand had been violently churned up and thrown about in a five foot strip running from the trees to the ocean, where it had been washed away by the tides. Small ridges sat at the sides of the strip, while the inside was a chaotic blend of compacted earth and aerated sand, churned up and pressed down by the struggles of… something. Concealed within the madness were footsteps—almost human, though they seemed to tread with an unnatural lightness.

“Does this look like a turtle laying its eggs?” Dipper asked. He was almost certain that it didn’t but it was best to rule out every natural explanation before supernatural ones were considered.

“Not like any turtle I’ve ever seen,” Sam answered breathlessly, looking out at the endless abyssal expanse of the ocean. Dipper, however, looked towards the forest. Whatever had moved across the beach had been traveling towards the ocean, which meant that it started from the jungle.

Dipper pulled his Weslee from his pocket and held it out, quickly navigating to the weirdness detection software as a small antenna ejected from the frame of the device. A radar map appeared on the screen, but returned no hits—whatever had been here was here no longer.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Sam whispered after Dipper as the adventurer advanced towards the tree line. “If there’s something here, we need to get back to the girls and call Dr. Ford.”

“We won’t go far,” Dipper answered, stepping into the trees. He winced as he stepped onto a fallen palm frond. With their bare feet, they wouldn’t be able to make it that far inland anyway. Sam was silent as he hesitantly followed.

The trail made by the mysterious creature through the undergrowth was obvious, with broken branches and churned soil marking the path. Sam’s eyes flitted around nervously, while Dipper’s scanned the environment with a hard expertise.

After a minute of walking, they stumbled upon a clearing where the trail terminated. There were still no signs of anomalies on the Weslee, so Dipper switched it to photo mode.

On one side of the clearing was a nest of some kind—grass and palm fronds had been walked on enough to become a soft and earthy pulp. A mass of discarded coconut shells took up almost a quarter of the nest. Dipper paced silently around the space, snapping pictures of everything that could be of interest.

“Is this… it’s home?” Sam asked, swallowing. Dipper rolled his eyes at Sam’s nervousness. He knew that he had been the same way when he had started his adventuring, but it was hard not to hold Sam to a higher standard—especially since he was eighteen.

“I don’t think so,” Dipper answered. “This wasn’t the nest of a predator. Lots of plant matter here, but no bones. No signs of violence, except for that.” He pointed at the palm tree nearest the nest—two splotches of liquid, long since dried to a burgundy crust had been splattered onto the wood. Blood.

“Then what was it?” Sam asked, clearly becoming more fidgety. They needed to leave soon.

“I think this was the nest of prey,” Dipper answered, his eyes hard as he stood up. He looked around the clearing one more time before turning and leading the way back towards the beach. He grabbed onto Sam’s wrist as he did so, moving quickly. “Whatever lived here was taken by something, and dragged into the water.”

“So… there’s something in the ocean?” Sam swallowed again.

“There’s all kinds of things in the ocean, Sam,” Dipper answered as they emerged back onto the beach. Together, they started jogging back towards the girls—soon, they rounded the bend in the beach and saw both of them splashing in the shallows, safe and sound. “And I have a hunch that whatever’s causing this weirdness spike is down there too.”


	17. Ambush

Dipper stared up at the ceiling in the hull of the _Stan o’ War II._ The sun had long since set and everyone had retired to bed, but he found himself unable to sleep. Feeling the gentle rocking of the ship on the waves, he could do nothing but relive in his mind what he and Sam had seen on the island of Little Inagua.

Once he and Sam had returned to the overhanging palm tree where Pacifica and Mabel had been, they had all gathered in the shade as Dipper told them what they had discovered. Sam had been an enthusiastic witness, verifying everything Dipper said in between sips of a soda. Initially, Pacifica had been hesitant to believe them, but the pictures on the Weslee had been more than enough to convince her.

However, after a lengthy debate, they had decided to stay on the island for the remainder of the day—there was no need to interrupt Stan and Ford’s explorations if there was no immediate and obvious danger. If there was evidence of something in the ocean, it was likely that this would be the last beach day they were able to have—so, they intended to enjoy it.

To stay safe, however, they divided up responsibilities. While three of them could be sunbathing, playing bocce, or splashing in the water, one of them sat in the shade and monitored the Weslee for any weirdness activity. Furthermore, they all stayed within eye and earshot of each other and took special care not to venture out too far into the water. 

As the sun set, they took the preemptive caution of starting a small fire on the shore, just in case the Stans were late in getting back. They had spent the evening around the crackling blaze, sharing in conversation and laughter. The currents of anxiety and fear beneath their words were undeniable, though none of them were willing to discuss that directly.

The first stars were just beginning to peek out among the deepening blue sky when the _Stan o’ War II_ rounded the curve of the island and came into view—Stan stood at the helm, and he was loudly blasting the horn to get the attention of those on the beach. That was ultimately unnecessary, since every eye had been trained on the horizon, looking for the first sign of the blinking red and green lights that marked the edges of the ship.

Dipper had placed a call on the Weslee, informing Ford that they should bring the _Stan o’ War II_ in as close to the shore as they possibly could. The teenagers still had to pile back into the raft and row out to the ship, and they all wanted to minimize their time on the water in such a flimsy vessel.

As the blinking lights of the boat creeped closer and closer to the kelp beds near the shore, Sam and Dipper dragged the raft back down to the waterline while Pacifica and Mabel kicked sand onto the fire, quickly snuffing it out.

When the raft was barely afloat, Pacifica and Mabel piled into it. Dipper and Sam stayed outside of it a little longer, walking it out past the breakers before they hauled themselves over the gunwale with synchronous, fluid motions. They scrambled to their seats and nocked the oars into place, grunting as they plunged them into the water and send the craft surging forward.

They were frightened enough by the possibilities of whatever had created that trail on the beach that they worked almost as one unit—their movements were perfectly matched as they made a beeline for the _Stan o’ War II._

As they rowed, Pacifica couldn’t help but peer over the edge of the raft and down into the water. During the day, it had been safe, clear, and clean. Now, even with the moon and starlight above, she couldn’t peer more than a few inches into the sea. At the edges of her vision, the kelp below swayed with the motion of the water and the oars—as though the bottom of the ocean itself was writhing. Mabel, who had her knees pulled up beneath her chin, didn’t look.

The floodlight atop the mast of the _Stan o’ War II_ flickered to life as they approached the stern of the ship, even brighter now that the bulb had been replaced. Stan, still standing in the wheelhouse, was scanning the horizon for any signs of movement. Ford, at the stern, threw a rope to Sam, who snatched it out of the air easily and pulled the raft up against the hull of the much larger ship.

Pacifica and Mabel had scampered up the ladder and onto the deck, followed by Sam. Dipper was the last one up—he passed the fossil slab up to Sam, and then tied the rope Ford had thrown to the one that ran around the sides of the raft.

With everyone safe on the rear deck of the ship, Ford, Sam, and Dipper all strained to haul the waterlogged raft up after them. As soon as it was secured, the engines began to churn beneath the waterline as Stan turned the ship around and headed directly away from the island.

The next few hours had been a flurry of exhausted activity—Pacifica and Mabel took turns in the shower getting cleaned up while Sam and Dipper had gone to the laboratory with Ford to discuss the implications of what they had found. Stan, the acting captain of the ship, was piloting them towards a calm and uneventful stretch of water—they needed someplace to anchor for the night, after all.

In the lab, everything appeared exactly the same as it had in the morning. The code processing on the teleportation engine was approaching seventy percent completion. The only change was the fossil slab, which Ford proudly placed on top of one of the computers, for analysis at a later date. As for now, they had bigger problems.

Ford wasted no time in displaying what he and Stan had found—there were several underwater caves in the area that didn’t appear on any previous maps of the region. This was unusual for one of the most heavily trafficked and well-researched regions of ocean on the planet—this meant that either the caves were new, or that something had hidden them until now.

A map of the seafloor appeared on the large screen as Ford continued to explain. The most exciting thing they had discovered, however, was that the bottom of the ocean here wasn’t solid. By dropping specially calibrated weights equipped with sonar to the sand below, they had been able to measure the way the seismic and sonar waves penetrated and echoed around in the earth beneath.

If the seafloor had been completely homogenous, there would have been no change in the feedback. But there were distinct variations and fluctuations in the returning waves, consistent with a two huge, cavernous spaces hidden beneath the sand. The caves was filled with water, but the mere fact that they were there at all was shocking.

They had something to explore the next day.

At this point, Mabel had wandered into the lab, her hair still dripping wet—knowing how long Pacifica would take in the shower, she had chosen to go first. She wore flannel pajama pants and a pink t-shirt. Sam nodded at her as she walked over to a rolling chair and sat down on it backwards, resting her chin against the back. She didn’t volunteer any information, but merely watched with wide and open eyes as Dipper took charge. 

Dipper pulled out his Weslee, and, tapping a few buttons, cast the pictures he had taken of the strange trail and desecrated nest to the interactive screen. Ford had watched in silence as Dipper swiped through the pictures, explaining how they had walked into jungles and stumbled upon the clearing with twin blood splatters.

Ford held up his hand to stop the pictures once they reached the blood. He stepped closer to the screen, eyes dancing over the crimson trails like a crime scene investigator looking at viscera splatters on drywall.

“Well, I had thought that it might have been a turtle until you got to this,” Ford finally murmured.

“I thought exactly the same thing,” Dipper smirked, proud that his brain had worked in the same way as his mentor’s. “But our resident turtle expert back here assured me that that wasn’t the case.” Sam nodded in response.

“This is concerning,” Ford continued. “The only natural creature I know of that comes out of the ocean to hunt and then drags its prey back into the water is the saltwater crocodile. And those are only endemic to Australia—plus the footprints don’t match.”

“The footprints are what worry me,” Dipper replied, swiping back to the patterns in the sand. “They definitely look like they belong to humans.”

“They look like they belong to something that _looks_ like a human,” Ford corrected. “Let’s not go calling it a person until we have positive evidence of that.”

“Fair enough,” Dipper nodded. “How do you think we should go about researching this?”

“For now, we don’t do anything,” Ford answered. “The sun is down, and night is a dangerous time for doing anything when there’s an unknown anomaly in play. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to Little Inagua so I can get a firsthand look at these markings. Then, we’ll spend the rest of the day exploring those odd caves. Perhaps one of them leads into the larger caverns below the seafloor—if we can establish a connection, then we can explore in earnest the next day.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dipper acknowledged with a grin. As eager as he was to promptly get to work, he was exhausted as well. A good night’s sleep would allow everyone to go into their research fresh. Dipper then looked over at Mabel, who nodded in agreement. Pacifica wasn’t in the room, but he was sure that she wouldn’t have any objections.

“Umm…” Sam interjected, raising a finger. “Quick concern. I’m all for the weirdness research—believe me, I’d rather be here than anywhere else.” His eyes flashed over to Mabel, who was looking at him with concern. “But we do need to be back in Charleston by July 4th. If we’re not there for that party, my parents are going to kill me.”

Dipper was unable to keep himself from rolling his eyes. He understood how domineering the Southeast parents could be—he had spent more than enough time with the Northwests, and it seemed a just comparison. But on the verge of such a great discovery, he couldn’t see how Sam could be concerned with the repercussions of a simple party.

Sam was different from Pacifica in that way. Pacifica had been obedient, and had meant every word and action of it up until the Pines had arrived in town that first summer. Since then, she had been more openly rebellious. Sam had never been like that—he had never meant his obedience, and had instead hidden his subversive actions and personality beneath a veneer of subservience. He was happy to defy his parents in secret, but the prospect of openly defying them remained taboo.

Before Dipper had a chance to speak, however, Ford stepped in.

“Don’t worry, Sam,” Ford reassured him, tapping on the calendar in the lower right corner of the interactive screen. “It’s only June 30th. We can easily stay here until July 2nd, and have you back in time for your party. If we manage to get the teleportation engine up and running, even longer than that!”

A relieved look came across Sam’s face as his muscles relaxed, resting more of his weight against the table that held the teleportation engine.

And, for the evening, that had been it—Pacifica had eventually come out of the shower, and then Sam and Dipper had taken their turns in getting cleaned up. Stan had found a suitable place to stop the ship, and dropped the anchor off the bow. Everyone had then gathered in the kitchen for dinner—a hasty affair, but filling and delicious nonetheless.

The prospect of adventuring tomorrow had sent everyone to bed early, except for Stan. He had volunteered to stay awake the entire night watching the ocean for signs of movement in case something decided to attack the boat. Ford had insisted that he and Stan at least sleep in shifts, but Stan had refused—Ford would need his brain tomorrow for research.

Ford had given Stan all of the equipment he could need to keep watch—including a laser pistol and a pair of night vision goggles. The floodlights on the ship could only do so much, so it was decided to leave them off so as not to interfere with the infrared googles, and to make the _Stan o’ War II_ a less obvious target.

Dipper had no doubt that he was safe, but he still found himself unable to sleep. There was a puzzle here, and he was turning it over and over in his mind in an effort to fit it all together. Still, it was impossible to solve the puzzle if he didn’t have all the pieces.

He turned his head, eyes adjusted to the darkness, listening to the gentle breathing of the other occupants of the hull. Pacifica’s quiet breathing was barely audible, but Sam and Mabel’s certainly was. Sam wasn’t snoring loudly, but it was easy to follow the rise and fall of his breath. Mabel occasionally let loose with a chuckle or a snort in her sleep.

Dipper closed his eyes in an effort to lull himself to sleep. He had long since grown used to the breathing of both Mabel and Pacifica, but Sam’s seemed to be all that he could focus on. It was so out of the ordinary that it penetrated his restful state and brought his mind back into activity.

He tried to focus on something else—the visual image of Pacifica in her bikini leapt into his mind. He soon realized, however, that such an image wasn’t going to help him sleep at all. If anything, he was more awake now than he had ever been.

It was then that he heard another sound echo through the hull of the ship—a dull thud, as though something had been dropped on the floor. Instantly, his ears perked up as he listened more intently for a similar sound. His head craned up above the walls of the hammock as he peered around the room, looking for anything that could have fallen to make such a noise. There was nothing.

He heard the sound again, this time almost seeming to echo directly within his skull. There was no doubt now as to where the sound was coming from—it originated from the water outside of the boat, and whatever was making it was only separated from Dipper’s head by a narrow inch of metal.

Dipper held his breath as he waited for the sound to repeat itself. However, there was only silence—whatever it was appeared to have gone away. That made it much more likely that it was just a dumb fish that had run into the ship a couple of times before turning around.

Dipper’s shallow breathing returned—along with the noise. He jumped as he heard it again, this time even louder. The texture of the sound was also different. It wasn’t the solid thud of something impacting the ship, but rather the quiet scrape of something swimming alongside the hull. The demure screech started by Dipper’s head and traveled down the length of the ship towards the stern, passing Pacifica before finally trailing away into the darkness.

This time, it vanished for good. Still, Dipper knew that he wasn’t going to be able to go to sleep at all tonight. He was confident that Stan had everything under control upstairs—he wasn’t the kind to hold his fire if he saw anything out of the ordinary. Still, the least that Dipper could do would be to go to the deck of the ship and help his grunkle.

With a grunt, Dipper turned and reached down to his bag, which rested just within reach below his hammock. Dipper didn’t have a laser pistol—Ford had never entrusted him with one of those. But he did have a pocketknife, which he fumbled for in the darkness before finally feeling his fingers scrape the dimples of the handle. It wasn’t the explosive gasoline knife that Pacifica had used to defeat the monstrous starfish in Seattle, but it could still inflict some damage. He grabbed it and brought his arm back up into the hammock, preparing to vault up and out onto the floor.

The instant before he did so, the interior of the ship was flooded with a cold draft and dull light as the hatch to the deck above was silently opened. Dipper froze, sliding back down into his hammock and closing his eyes. He cracked his left eye barely enough to see out into the hull.

The person who opened the hatch had to have been Stan—there was no one else onboard. They were in the middle of the ocean, after all, and Stan would have seen anyone else who tried to board the ship with his infrared goggles.

But, as the figure advanced down the stairs, it soon became obvious to Dipper that it wasn’t Stan at all. The putrid scent of rotting fish filled the air as the creature took lumbering steps down to the floor. Dipper could hear quick, short breaths, as though the creature was using its sense of smell to hunt.

Dipper felt himself running his finger over the button that would open his knife as he watched the creature move. Slowly, as silently and stealthily as he could, Dipper prepared himself to spring out of his hammock, all the while trying to get a good look at whatever was within the hull of the ship, prowling in the darkness.

Once it was in the center of the room, the creature stopped and raised its head to the air. Now, Dipper could see its silhouette perfectly—it was the outline of a person, sniffing quickly and precisely. Dark garments were draped around it, leaving a dripping trail of water behind it that glistened in the starlight coming in from above.

With a sharp motion, its head snapped to the left, looking directly at Pacifica. Dipper got a look at the monster’s eyes as it did so—they were dull and flat, but burned with a cold orange fire.

Dipper felt blood begin to pound into his temples as the beast turned and took a step towards her hammock before stopping. She was clearly still asleep, or she would be panicking. If the creature took another step, Dipper was prepared to strike.

However, it merely leaned forward and extended an arm towards her, unnaturally long. Dipper felt his eyes go wide as he saw it—nails curling like claws, with every joint on the arms and hands seemingly wrenched from its socket, making the monster almost a marionette. Black strands of dripping seaweed seemed to grow from its skin.

Dipper’s mind seemed to short circuit. The only thing he could do was act, and act quickly.

Without uttering a word, Dipper planted his feet on his hammock and pushed against it, the ropes straining as he flung himself into the air and landed on the floor with a resounding thud.

Instantly, everyone started awake, rubbing sleep from their eyes as they tried to figure out what had made such a noise. The creature stopped advancing towards Pacifica and turned towards Dipper, its head almost turning 180 degrees as it did so. Dipper flicked open his switchblade.

Then, Pacifica’s piercing scream echoed through the ship as she finally got a look at the creature standing a mere two feet from her, the sound bouncing off of the metal walls and reverberating with itself. Mabel covered her ears while Sam leapt from his hammock, ready to fight.

Dipper charged towards the monster, holding his switchblade with both hands. The monster simply grinned, its pointed white teeth glimmering in the dull light of the hold.

With a single fluid motion, it slammed its left arm down onto Dipper’s forearms, forcing him to stumble and causing him to cry out in pain as its jagged nails cut dark channels into his skin, rivulets of blood beginning to pour from them.

With its right hand, it pried the knife from his hands and brought it up to its mouth. Placing the blade between its jaws, it bit down with a sharp and metallic crack, smashing it to bits and leaving the shimmering shards of metal to cascade to the floor with the sound of a devilish windchime.

The creature bent down over Dipper, who lay immobilized on the floor. Its jaws opened as it did so, arcing open unnaturally wide and exposing the fact that every one of its teeth was sharpened to a razor point.

Suddenly, the creature lurched to the side as Pacifica’s fist collided with the side of its head. She had vaulted out of her hammock and planted her feet on her luggage, putting all of her momentum into a single strike.

The creature had moved, but it didn’t let go of its grip on Dipper’s arms. All it did was refocus its attention on Pacifica, dull orange eyes shining as an inhuman, shuttering, shaking grown reverberated from deep within its hollow chest.

Pacifica shrank backward as the disjointed neck of the monster lunged for her; every vertebra barely connected to its neighbor. She flung up her hands to protect herself.

Before it was able to snap its jaws around her fingers, the beast was suddenly thrown across the room with a metallic thud. Dipper howled in pain as its nails were dragged free from his skin. He collapsed backwards, pushing with his legs to get away.

Over him stood Sam, holding onto the scuba tank that he had just swung full-force into the chest of the creature. Mabel was barely out of her hammock, holding a sharp knitting needle in each hand as the monster slowly staggered to its feet.

Dipper cast his eyes around the hull—there were weapons in the totes that lined the wall, but he didn’t have time to get to any of them. He was too concerned with trying to staunch the bleeding on his arms. Moving quickly, he bundled his forearms into the fabric of his hammock as best he could.

The creature itself was still a mystery—despite the starlight pouring in from the hatch, no one had seen anything more than a silhouette of it. It looked like a person, but covered in sea life, and with teeth better suited for holding onto slippery fish than for chewing. Its jaw was broad and incoherent, almost as though it had been broken, forced apart, and then healed.

Its chest had been caved in by the impact of the scuba tank, and its breathing was ragged and shaking. Still, that didn’t seem to stop it as it planted its hands on the ground and slowly lurched to its feet—supported by some unnatural force as much as by its own muscles. The grin remained on its face as it spread its fingers wide, beckoning Sam into a fatal embrace.

The creature bent down and a strange gurgling noise emanated from its throat as it prepared to lunge forward. Sam stood at the ready, both hands ready to swing the scuba tank with as much power as he could muster—this time he would aim for the head.

“Get down!” bellowed Ford as he kicked open the door to his room behind the monster. The commotion outside had woken him, and he was ready to fight. Dipper could see that he was wearing his trench coat, and held his laser pistol at the ready. The creature’s head spun around, surprised by the older man’s sudden appearance as the teenagers all fell to the side of the boat.

A buzzing sound echoed through the hull as Ford fired three shots at the intruder—the first two missed, sailing wide and penetrating the hull of the boat. Pressurized streams of water began to gush in from the outside. Dipper turned in a panic—it would take a long time for the ship to sink, but those holes still needed to be patched as soon as possible.

The third shot hit its mark, impacting the creature’s chest just to the right of center, and sending it to the floor with a hiss as its flesh was seared by the power and heat of the blast. It lay there, twitching as the four teenagers slowly stood up.

Ford’s breathing was sharp and steady, keeping his pistol trained on the monster as he advanced towards it. It appeared incapacitated, but it was still clearly breathing, its collapsed chest moving up and down in short and shallow pulses.

“Mabel,” Ford instructed in a voice that couldn’t be argued with. “To my right is a tote labeled _Emergency Boat Repair._ Inside you will find a clear plastic case filled with adhesive fiberglass patches. Use those patches to seal the holes.”

Mabel nodded as she rushed over to the tote that Ford has pointed out, quickly finding the case and returning to the damage in the boat’s hull. The water that had already entered the boat could be pumped out later—what mattered most now was keeping the flooding from getting worse.

“Sam,” Ford continued. “In the fridge upstairs is a small black bottle. There is a powerful sedative inside. Bring it to me, and be careful.” Sam nodded and advanced towards the hatch, the staircase beneath it slippery with the seawater and muck the creature had brought in.

“Pacifica,” Ford continued. “Dipper’s wounded. Take care of it.” Pacifica nodded and, swallowing, began to hesitantly walk to her boyfriend.

The carefully coordinated orchestra of activity lasted for eleven seconds.

As Sam was passing the incapacitated monster on his way to the deck, and Pacifica was passing it on her way to Dipper, it suddenly sprang into motion.

The orange in its eyes burned bright and ferocious as its disjointed arms lashed to the side, wrapping its horrifying nails around the ankles of both Sam and Pacifica. With a mighty pull, it brought both of them crashing to the ground, grunting in pain as the wind was forced from their lungs.

Ford fired again as the beast scrambled to its feet. The shot impacted the shoulder of the creature, but it didn’t flinch as the shot lanced clean through its flesh and hit the far wall with a fizzle. Mabel screamed as she slammed the first patch onto the hole, staunching the flow of water. Ford’s fourth blast had landed a mere three feet from her head.

Ford spun around as the monster leapt into the air, grabbing ahold of his shoulders with preternatural force. It pushed him to his knees, using him for momentum as it launched itself back onto the deck.

“Stanley!” Ford called out as he turned and raced up the steps after it. “Hit the floodlights!” Sam scrambled to his feed and followed Ford, with Mabel close on his heels. The two holes that remained in the hull could wait for now.

Pacifica quickly turned to Dipper, watching as he pulled his wounded arms from the blood-soaked hammock. She gagged as she turned to her suitcase, quickly picking out two of her least favorite t-shirts. There was no time for her to clean the wounds, but the fabric could at least be used to staunch the bleeding.

They walked to the deck together, Pacifica performing medicine in motion as she tied the cloth tight around Dipper’s wounds. The shirts now bound around his arms, tinged pink at the edges, they both burst onto the deck with the others, panting heavily.

Suddenly, the entire deck was bathed in a soft white glow as Stan flipped on the mast light. At the same moment, a distinct splash was heard off the stern of the boat—the creature had escaped into the depths.

Slowly, everyone on the deck coalesced into a defensive circle, breathing raggedly as they tried to take stock of what had just happened. Sam had his scuba tank, Mabel her needles, and Ford his pistol—Dipper and Pacifica were defenseless. Stan held his pistol in one hand as he pulled off his night-vision goggles.

“Stanley!” Ford bellowed in anger, looking up at his brother in the wheelhouse. “What the hell? You were supposed to be keeping watch!”

“I was, you—!” Stan defended himself, before biting his lip. It was clear that he wanted to add a scathing insult to his comment, but held himself back. “Whatever that thing was, it didn’t show up on infrared!” The shaking in his voice was a mixture of anger and shame, at the monster, and at himself for not protecting his family.

“No body heat,” Ford murmured. “Even fish show up on infrared. This was… something else.”

“Everyone’s safe, though,” Sam announced, trying to lighten the mood and sound brave at the same time. He instantly regretted his comment as he looked over to Dipper, and saw the cloth around his arms beginning to grow warm and wet with blood. The wounds weren’t deep, but there were a lot of them.

“For now,” Ford replied, advancing towards the edge of the ship and peering down into the water. Everyone was quiet as he did so, not wanting to distract him in any way.

A splashing in the distance caused his head to snap up, and for him to back away from the railing. In the distance, at the edge of the penumbra cast by the floodlight ahead, a whitecap betrayed the presence of something lurking below the surface.

A moment later, a similar splashing came from the other side of the boat. Sam and Mabel squinted their eyes, peering out into the distance with their weapons at the ready. Stan, in the wheelhouse, was furiously tapping away on the console, trying to get a reading on the sonar.

“Please tell me those are sharks,” Mabel whispered, barely audible over the splashes around the boat, which were becoming much louder. “I’d take sharks over anything right now.”

“Too coordinated to be sharks,” Ford answered, peeling off his gloves and tossing them to Pacifica.

She held them awkwardly, unsure of what she was supposed to do with them. It was then that she felt the cables in the fiber, and realized that they were the electric gloves she had used against the dyre. She quickly pulled them on and flexed her fingers, feeling the familiar hum of power through the diodes. The gloves were a bit large for her, and the extra finger dangled awkwardly off the side, but it was better than nothing.

“Dipper,” Ford instructed, pointing towards the lab. “Inside the lab you will find a bundle of copper cables sheathed in white plastic. I want you to detach the computer from the teleportation engine and attach those cables. Then, run the cables off of the boat and into the water.”

“What?” Dipper asked in disbelief. “Why?”

“We’re going to discharge the energy the engine contains into the ocean. It should create an electromagnetic field powerful enough to fry or repel anything around us.” Ford grimaced as he spoke.

“We just got done charging the engine!” Dipper replied angrily. “We don’t know if we can get it to work again! Do you really want to lose the engine?”

“I don’t want to lose you!” Ford bellowed. “All of you! And we don’t know what that thing was, or how many of them are out there. Now go attach those cables.” Dipper, hearing the hurt in his voice, nodded and turned towards the lab.

No sooner had he taken his first step than the ocean exploded.

From every side of the ship, a surge of seawater burst onto the deck as dark shapes launched themselves from the sea and onto the deck. Dipper fell back into the center of the defensive circle as the mist cleared, and the battle began.

Five creatures, nearly identical to the one that had crept into the hull of the ship before, stalked around the group. Now, in the floodlights, Dipper could get a much better look at them.

They looked human—by all means, they could have been human. They still wore the tattered, waterlogged remains of pants and overcoats. Their teeth, however, were razor sharp, and their eyes all burned with an identical orange fire. It was obvious that the sea growth on them wasn’t actually part of their bodies—they were either wearing it as a disguise, or it had simply accumulated over the time they had spent underwater.

All of their bodies, however, were slightly disproportionate—their joints were dislocated, giving them an uncanny reach and a degree of flexibility that should have been impossible. Their nails were almost claws, and their feet were so wrinkled and discolored that purple veins were visible through their translucent skin. Their hair was falling out in clumps, while that which remained was plastered to their skulls by polluted seawater.

“Dipper, get to the cables!” Ford instructed again as the deck of the boat burst into activity.

Ford turned the power of his laser pistol to maximum and, closing one eye for better aiming, completely blew the head off one of the creatures. In a splatter of blue blood, its flailing body tumbled over the gunwale and back into the sea, where it promptly sank. A headshot was fatal.

Dipper lunged forward, dashing towards the lab. He didn’t agree with Ford’s decision to discharge the engine, but they were no longer in a position to negotiate—they were fighting for their lives, and there was no telling how many more of the monsters may still be lurking in the depths around the boat.

As Dipper wrapped his hand around the doorknob, however, he was thrown backwards by the force of another creature blasting out of the water next to him. It sent him skidding across the deck, eventually sliding to a halt next to the hatch leading below. Instinctively, he prepared to roll into it for shelter.

The creature was crouched on the railing like a perverse vulture. Dipper could see the muscles in its legs knotting as it prepared to spring forward and land on top of him. A blood red tongue lashed around its needle-like teeth.

Before it was able to, however, a pinpoint laser blast tore cleanly through the top of its scalp, exiting at the base of its neck. The brain destroyed, it tumbled backwards into the water.

Dipper looked up, and saw Stan at the ready. He had just saved Dipper, and was now pointing his pistol towards the chaos on the deck. It was obvious that he wanted to fire, but the close-quarters combat combined with the spray of the sea made it just as likely that he would accidentally hit his brother or one of the teens.

Dipper, catching his breath, struggled to prop himself up on his bleeding arms. He watched the battle unfold as he tried to rejoin it.

One of the monsters charged towards Mabel, who held out her knitting needles in a defensive stance. Instantly, the creature recoiled—for some reason, it didn’t seem to like the stakes. It turned around and began to scramble backwards as Mabel advanced, an angry frown on her face as she beat the beast back.

It was then, however, that one of her needles caught a loose flap of skin on the creature’s arm, piercing into it and ripping a deep gash into the pale flesh. It howled in pain, but then stopped. A semi-curious expression crossed its face as it observed the wound.

Mabel watched in horror as the skin she had just torn open swelled together and sealed back up, without even a scratch remaining. The creature let loose a guttural chuckle and lunged towards her, no longer warded off by the needles.

Mabel screamed and turned, only to feel the violent pressure of the monster’s claws dig into her ankles. She felt her legs give way beneath her as she fell to the deck, her jaw slamming into the ground and her needles scattering into the waves.

At the same moment, Pacifica howled in pain as one of the creatures crept around the back of her and dug its gnarled fingers into her hair. She had been distracted battling another one of the beasts, which bore several smoking holes in its clothing from electric blasts.

With a brutal strength, it lifted her off of the ground by her hair, the power of its arms far greater than what should have been possible for its body size. She flailed around helplessly, swinging her arms and legs as the monster holding her began to walk towards the stern of the boat, preparing to take her into the sea with them. She only whimpered louder as her efforts increased the pressure on her hair. Her smoldering victim followed; its jagged smile stretched into a hateful leer.

Just as in the raft before, Dipper and Sam acted as one.

No longer distracted by the bleeding from his arms, Dipper surged to his feet and charged towards the monster holding Pacifica. The monster she had wounded turned towards him, preparing to defend their prey.

That monster was unable to take a single step before it was met by twin laser blasts—Stan’s through the heart, and Ford’s through the head. Dipper sidestepped the collapsing, dissolving corpse and, with a hateful scream, tackled the monster carrying Pacifica. Blood trailed from his forearms, his hands stained a pale and murderous red.

The beast fell to the deck, releasing its grip on Pacifica’s hair as it bellowed in rage, preparing to scratch at Dipper’s eyes with its curving claws.

Before it was able to, however, Dipper felt himself being pulled off of the monster by Pacifica. With astounding strength, she threw him across the deck to safety before latching her hands around the turgid ankles of the beast.

Pacifica’s screaming was now not one of fear or pain, but of anger. Thousands of volts of electricity poured from her hands and into the creature’s frame, only made more powerful by the coating of seawater on the beast’s skin, causing it to seize up and twitch violently. Dipper winced as he heard bones crack, shredded under the power of the monster’s muscles. Soon, it lay still—not dead, but no longer capable of movement. Its skeleton had been shattered into sharp fragments of bone.

Dipper looked at Pacifica in fear, awe, and love as she stood up and straightened her hair—a single strand of seaweed remained tangled amongst the golden strands.

A brutal crunch distracted both of them, causing them to look to the other side of the deck as Sam brought his scuba tank down on the skull of the creature that had Mabel in its grasp. It was the third such blow Sam had struck, but this was the one that worked.

The monster crumpled onto the deck facedown, with a pink and orange goop oozing from its skull. Mabel kicked with all of her strength, tears streaming down her face as she broke free from the necrotic grip of the beast, breaking its unfeeling wrists in the process. The corpse began to crumble into ash and dust.

Sam offered her a hand, which she took gratefully. Standing up, she wrapped Sam in a hug and buried her face in his chest. Instinctively, his arm came up around her shoulders, protecting her.

All eyes then turned to Ford, locked in combat with the only remaining monster. It had gotten in close to him, making his laser pistol useless. And, without his gloves, he could do little more than keep the creature at bay—his hands were wrapped around its wrists, keeping its spiraling claws from piercing his skin.

Mabel rushed over to Dipper, helping him to his feet as Sam and Pacifica advanced towards the back of the creature. Sam held his scuba tank at the ready as Pacifica charged her gloves, preparing to dispatch it as they had done the others. A confident grin crossed Ford’s face as he saw them, knowing that they had succeeded in repelling the attack.

It was then that the ocean exploded again.

This time, more than a dozen of the beasts crawled onto the deck, launched from the ocean and creeping over the gunwales. Dipper and Mabel started hobbling towards the hatch looking for weapons, only to have one of the monsters deliberately step between them and their goal. It closed the hatch door, as though to intentionally add insult to injury.

Sam and Pacifica were back to back in a ring of orange eyes. Ford was entirely wrapped up with one of the creatures, his laser pistol nowhere in sight. Mabel was unarmed, and Dipper could barely lift his fists to fight, so woozy was he becoming with blood loss. Around them, the gurling breath of the monsters became an obvious, melancholy laugh.

There was no way they could win this next round.

“Massive movement on the sonar!” Stan bellowed from the wheelhouse—the entire fight, he had been itching to join the fray, but knew that he would be more useful at the controls. Now, his patience was paying off. “Grab onto something!”

Dipper and Mabel collapsed to the ground as they felt the _Stan o’ War II_ shake, as though a whale was passing directly beneath the boat.

The creatures looked around in worry, their flaming eyes flitting around as they stumbled around the swaying deck. A bigger fish had just arrived.

Pacifica and Sam, taking advantage of a small gap in the monsters, charged forwards, towards Dipper and Mabel. With a sizzle, Pacifica fried the creature that stood between the twins and the hatch leading into the hull. She tossed it to the side, where it twitched weakly.

In unison, all four teenagers held onto the hatch handle and each other as the boat shook again, rising on a massive swell before collapsing into a valley between the waves. Even in the storm two nights earlier, the sea had not been this spontaneously violent.

The monsters, their laughter now turning to yelps of fear, started to abandon the deck en masse, diving into the ocean and vanishing into the waves. Only half of them had evacuated before it happened.

“My god,” Dipper murmured to himself, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

From the port side of the boat came a cascading wave, over fifty feet tall. Within the wave, reflected in the moonlight, were massive flashes of silver, gold, and luminescent blue-green. The _Stan o’ War II_ didn’t have time to react as the blast of water tore over the deck. Such a wave should have sunk the ship, but it remained stable, as though supported from the bottom.

Glistening, shining lances of water and power crashed onto the ship, inundating the teenagers, who held firm to the hatch handle and each other. Stan too, sheltered in the wheelhouse, was secure.

The creatures on the deck weren’t so lucky. Those who had been unable to escape were shredded by the force of the water, their limbs rent from their bodies by the sheer pressure of the wave. The corpses of the monsters that had already been slain were annihilated, seeming to burst outwards. Some of those still alive, who were better positioned, were merely thrown from the deck and into the sea.

The creature holding onto Ford was one of those.

Dipper, Mabel, Sam, Pacifica, and Stan watched in horror as Ford was blasted into the air and over the side of the ship. For a brief moment, his six-fingered hand latched onto the railing, and it seemed as though he would be safe.

It was then that the creature finally succeeded in sinking its nails into his skin. With a pained scream, Ford was torn away from the ship and, with the beast still clinging to him, vanished into the black sea.

The teenagers on the deck were paralyzed as the wave passed over them, fading out into the expanse of the ocean. Within a few seconds, excepting the water draining from the deck and the seaweed wrapped around the railing, it was as though nothing had happened at all.

“Ford!” Stan shouted from above them. “Get back here, you idiot!” Sam, Mabel, Dipper, and Pacifica watched in shock as he leapt from the wheelhouse and dropped to the deck, ignoring the ladder and falling the entire eight foot drop. He hit the ground with a roll, springing to his feet and rushing towards the last place Ford had been before he vanished.

“He’s going after him,” Pacifica whispered breathlessly, knowing that she would break into tears if she stopped to think.

“No!” Dipper and Mabel screamed in unison as they sprang to their feet and chased after their grunkle. As fast as he was, they were faster, and they each grabbed ahold of an arm and pulled him back.

“You can’t go Grunkle Stan!” Mabel begged as he continued to force his way forward—in his desperation, Stan was stronger than the twins combined. “You saw those monsters! You don’t stand a chance against them in the water!”

“Neither does that idiot Ford!” Stan answered, voice trembling between vengeance and lamentation. Looking down into the water, they could see a trail of bubbles marking the place where Ford had been taken under.

“Stan, don’t you dare!” Dipper pleaded as he tried to reaffix his grip. The t-shirts around his arms were dripping, saturated with blood. He could feel Stan slipping from his grasp when Pacifica appeared behind him. At the same moment, Sam came up behind Mabel and grabbed onto Stan’s shoulders.

Together, they held onto him, tears in every eye, keeping him back from diving into the ocean. The bubbles slowly began to fade, and then finally stopped. Stan, his muscles going slack, slumped over the railing.


	18. Ally

“Give him back you sons of bitches!” Stan bellowed, swinging his fists at the water. “I don’t even care that there are kids here!” Stan’s blows, which had decapitated zombies and held off creatures much bigger than himself, splashed impotently against the dark waves.

Dipper and Mabel stood on either side of Grunkle Stan, their hands placed on his shoulders. After pulling him back from diving in the water, he had satisfied himself with remaining on the rear deck, glowering down into the water with an expression more hateful than either of the twins had seen before. The wrinkles on his face, carved by the pain of his life and struggles, all converged around his burning eyes.

Even though Stan didn’t pose a risk of jumping into the malevolent ocean, Dipper and Mabel stayed by his side to console him. Still, there was work that desperately needed to be done on the ship if its occupants were to stay safe.

With a nod of his head, Dipper instructed Sam to climb up to the wheel of the ship and prepare to depart. Leaving Ford behind, wherever he had been taken, was painful—but they desperately needed time to restock and plan. Pacifica was sent into the hull of the ship to complete Mabel’s hasty fiberglass patch job, as well as to retrieve medical supplies and weapons to defend the ship from further attack.

Dipper hoped that the assault had been completely terminated by the wave that had crashed over the ship. He couldn’t help but turn over in his mind what that wave could have possibly been—it wasn’t natural, that was for sure. Even rogue waves didn’t glow in shades of blue and glimmering metal.

Figuring out the source of the waves, however, wasn’t as pressing a concern as determining what exactly had just attacked them. They didn’t show up on infrared, they lived underwater, they looked like people with broken joints, their eyes burned with an orange fire, they dissolved into ash when killed, and they healed from non-fatal wounds almost instantly… nothing Dipper had ever encountered or heard about fit that description.

Dipper watched from the corner of his eyes as Sam advanced towards the wheel and started to look over the console. He glanced over it with an easy familiarity, as though he had spent a large amount of time up there before. Dipper felt his stomach turn as the older blonde boy turned to face him with a desperate expression.

“We’re getting movement on the sonar again!” Sam shouted from the wheelhouse. “Multiple… things. All around us, and getting closer!”

“Good!” Stan replied. “Bring them to me! I won’t let them get away again!” He pulled his sleeves, already sopping wet, up closer to his shoulders.

“Grunkle Stan, we should go,” Mabel whispered sadly. “We don’t stand a chance against all of them if they come back. It was pure luck that that wave came and saved us the first time. Ford wouldn’t ha… have wanted us to get ourselves killed in a fight we can’t win.” The words coming from her mouth were shaky and ragged, her cheeks stained with tears no less plentiful than Stan’s. Dipper placed a hand on his sister’s shoulder, the blood-drenched t-shirts on his forearms still dripping red onto the sopping deck below.

“Doesn’t want,” Stan desperately corrected.

“Mabel’s right,” Dipper echoed, trying to instill his voice with as much authority as he could manage. Stan was in no fit state to captain the ship to safety, which meant that the much younger boy needed to take over in earnest. “Sam, weigh the anchor. I don’t care where you take us, just get us away from here.”

“Aye-aye,” Sam acknowledged, reaching over to the console. A metallic clanging sound echoed through the air as the inbuilt winch pulled the crusty anchor up from the seafloor. The _Stan o’ War II,_ which had been relatively stable throughout the assault, began to roll with the waves as the engines whirred to life.

“And Sam, mark down our latitude and longitude to the second,” Dipper instructed, wiping away the tears in his own eyes. “We’ll be coming back.”

“Don’t leave yet!” Stan shouted desperately; his eyes filled with newfound purpose as his stare penetrated the water. “I can see one of them now!” Dipper’s eyes flashed to the water—there was indeed movement in the ocean, and it was heading directly for the boat. However, something seemed different—the creatures before had been draped in greenery and seaweed, while this thing glowed with an almost silvery sheen.

“Stan, don’t!” shouted Mabel as he lunged over the railing. With a mighty swing, Stan brought his first down into the water—this time, it didn’t splash, but instead impacted flesh with a dull and dense thud. Mabel’s fingernails scraped and dug into the cloth of his shirt as his feet left the deck, waist doubled over the gunwale. Dipper fell to the ground and grabbed his ankles, grimacing at his feet while he pulled his grunkle back onto the deck.

“Ha!” Stan shouted, raising his fist in the air. His knuckles dripped with a bright crimson red. “Got him! That’ll teach them not to mess with us again!”

“We just killed half a dozen of them, and twenty got shredded,” Dipper chastised as he pushed Stan away from the railing. “I don’t think a single punch is going to do anything.” Mabel wrapped her arms around Grunkle Stan’s waist, anchoring him in place not with brute strength, but with the power of her embrace.

“Dipper, should I keep going?” Sam shouted as the de facto captain turned back towards the railing. Dipper held up his hand, instructing Sam to stop as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing. The churning engines went dead, leaving a concentric ring of bubbles pulsing away from the ship. 

The ocean beneath the ship was glowing, a shifting pattern of blue, green, and white—almost as though the aurora borealis had been inverted. Amidst the ribbons of color, bright shapes flitted amongst the waves—some silver, some golden, some a duller gray or red.

Dipper fixed his eyes on one of those shapes as it rose up from the seafloor approximately twenty feet from the ship. Against the backdrop of the luminescent sea, he could make out strangely distorted fins and a long, sinuous tail. The tail seemed to terminate in a massive three-pronged barb.

Dipper’s mind started to flip through everything that he had ever read in any of the journals, searching for any information that could possibly be useful. There were plenty of anomalies in the Gravity Falls lake, but nothing met the description of these. Still, they seemed to share the same colors as the wave which had saved the crew of the _Stan o’ War II,_ so making positive contact was still possible. Dipper swallowed as the silver figure approached the surface, feeling his gut turn and knuckles turn white.

He took a step back in surprise as the head of a young man poked above the waves. His deep black hair was cropped close to his head, and his torso was covered in smoothly polished metal plates, held together by rope fashioned from seaweed. Looking down into the glowing water, it was now obvious that his human torso transformed into a sleek, lashing fish’s tail at the waist.

“Ow,” he said, pinching his nose in an attempt to stop the flow of bright red blood. “Te salvamos, lo sabes. No pensé que me darías un puñetazo en la cara por eso.”

“Uhh…” Dipper stammered, trying to keep his mouth closed. “Sam, do you speak any Spanish?”

“I think they said that they saved us!” Sam answered, climbing down from the wheelhouse. “Beyond that, I don’t know.” Sam approached the railing, along with Mabel and Stan. Stan’s expression was one of slack-jawed confusion, while Mabel’s was a mix between shimmering eyes of exultation and a furrowed brow of worry.

“Hey guys!” Pacifica chimed in, opening the hatch and walking up from belowdecks. “The patches in the hull are holding. I’ve got bandages for Dipper, and a bunch of laser guns. We’ll be able to shoot anyone who so much as looks at us funny.”

She paused, taken aback by everyone standing at the gunwale, peering over the edge of the ship in confusion and shock. From her angle, she couldn’t see down into the water.

“Did I miss something?” she asked as she approached the railing. When she saw the person in the water, her face went through the same range of emotions as the others, before finally settling on a casual interest.

“Oh, English then,” the merman replied from below, shaking his head to clear away the last of the dripping blood. “The blonde one is right. I said that we saved you, and that I didn’t expect to get punched in the face for it.”

“We’re sorry for that!” Mabel called out. “It was an honest mistake!” Her voice rang out over the water—this was the first merperson she had seen in years, and the first she had ever encountered out in the ocean proper.

“I’m not sorry,” Stan grumbled. “Stupid fish-man shouldn’t have come so close to the boat. Don’t tell Ford, but I haven’t paid the insurance on this thing in months.” His voice caught as he mentioned his brother’s name, but he soon doubled down—he wouldn’t admit of the possibility that Ford could be dead.

“Be nice,” Dipper answered, jabbing his elbows into Stan’s ribs. “Thank you for saving us, by the way. We would have been toast without you.”

“It’s… no problem,” the merman answered. Now, his expression mirrored the confusion evident on the faces of the land dwellers. His eyes were focused on Mabel, who looked around uncertainly.

Without warning, he vanished below the surface before reemerging a moment later with a mermaid at his side. Instead of plate armor, she wore an undershirt made of a slightly shimmering material, covered by fine silver chainmail. Her auburn hair was bound up tightly around the back of her neck.

“¿Es esta la chica que el príncipe nos dijo que encontráramos?” asked the merman as he pointed at Mabel. “¡Creo que es! Nunca entendí su obsesión por encontrarla,” the mermaid replied. Dipper and Mabel looked over at Sam for a translation, but he could only shrug. His Spanish was weak to begin with, but the underwater dialect spoken by the merfolk was even more foreign. “Yo tampoco,” the merman sighed in return. “Pero él querrá verla. ¡Ve por el príncipe!” With that, the mermaid leapt out of the water, her golden tail shining in the starlight. She dove back down with the quietest of splashes and vanished into the depths. 

“Umm… Dipper,” Pacifica asked as she gently reached out to her boyfriend’s left arm. “What’s going on?” Dipper winced as she unwrapped the saturated t-shirt from his forearm, exposing the deep scratches that had been left by the monster’s claw-like nails. They weren’t large enough to require stitches, and would close on their own in relatively little time.

“I’m not really sure,” Dipper answered, gritting his teeth as Pacifica opened a bottle of water and poured it out over his wounds, cleaning away the accumulated blood and some loose fibers that had clung to the sticky red mess. “We were attacked by fish-people, and now we’re being saved by different fish people.”

“Can we trust these fish people?” Sam asked, turning to look at Dipper. Even Stan looked at his great-nephew in anticipation. Stan was good at many things, but he knew when he was outside of his area of expertise.

“Of course we can!” Mabel answered in Dipper’s stead, placing her hands on her hips. “Every merman I’ve known has been a great person.”

“And you’ve known one merman,” Dipper replied, pinching the bridge of his nose with his right hand while Pacifica cleaned the scratches with an alcoholic wipe. “And might I remind you that I had to save his life! Because, and I feel I need to emphasize this, he was half-fish. And I had to give up my job at the pool with Wendy for him!”

“Excuse me?” Pacifica asked, applying slightly more pressure than was comfortable to one of the scratches. Dipper winced in response. “Since when did you have a job at the pool with Wendy?”

“That first summer,” Dipper answered, not shying away from the fact. “She and I worked as lifeguards for like three days. I never saw her in a bikini, though.”

“Well then,” Pacifica replied as she pulled out a roll of gauze. “I suppose that’s fine then. It’s not like she could hold a candle to me anyway.”

“Of course not,” Dipper smiled gently, leaning over to lightly kiss Pacifica on the forehead. It was then that a thought crossed Pacifica’s mind that caused a wicked smirk to cross her face.

“Is Mabel’s merman the same as the one you made out with?” she snidely remarked, wrapping the gauze around her boyfriend’s arm.

“Mabel, why would you tell her that?” Dipper whined, immediately looking over at his twin. She was the only one who possibly could have told Pacifica. As he spoke, Pacifica pulled out a thin rubber sleeve and stretched it out over the gauze. It made Dipper look as though he had a prosthetic arm, but it would at least protect the wounds from the water.

“It came up!” Mabel defended herself. “Was I just supposed to not mention your first kiss?”

“You kissed a merman?” Sam chuckled as he looked at Dipper. “I didn’t take you for that kind of guy.”

“Eh, I’ve kissed a few fish in my day,” Stan laughed behind them both. “It’s mostly salt.”

Every eye turned and looked at the older man, who had his hands clasped behind his head. It was odd that Stan was making a joke in the current circumstances, but there wasn’t much they could do until the mermaid returned from wherever she had gone. At least the older man was trying to keep his spirits up.

“What?” Stan asked loudly. “I lost a couple of bets.”

“The point is,” Dipper continued, shaking his head and returning to Mabel, “that regardless of whatever your history is with Mermando, these merfolk e may be different. I want to like and trust them too, but we need to be safe.”

“Umm,” the merman in the water off the boat cleared his throat. He had simply been treading water silently while the humans talked among themselves. He had heard everything. “We’re actually not different.”

“Not different?” Mabel asked, looking down towards the merman while she grabbed the railing. “What do you mean?”

“I just mean that we’re not different,” he shrugged. “Like at all.”

“At all?” Dipper followed up, stepping towards the railing.

“At all,” the merman answered, looking down at the water. He then glanced back up at the deck of the _Stan o’ War II,_ winked, and then sank beneath the waves.

“What did he mean by that?” Sam asked, looking at Dipper for an answer.

No sooner had the question passed his lips than the ocean in front of them buckled and exploded, the spray of water sending them all tumbling backwards. Pacifica grabbed ahold of Dipper to steady herself, while Dipper grabbed ahold of Stan.

From deep beneath the waves, a merman leapt into the air, his alluring aquamarine tail mightily pulsing against the water. His rich brown hair, running the entire length of his back, sparkled with starlight and seawater. Around his neck was a seashell shaped locket suspended by a thin chain of steel links. His armor was not like that of the other merfolk—it was instead delicately engraved with a myriad of pictures and designs. In his hand, he held a trident forged from a shining bronze metal and tipped with clear, glistening crystals.

Instead of collapsing back into the water, this merman landed squarely on the railing of the _Stan o’ War II,_ pulling himself into a sitting position. If he were able to stand on land, he would have easily been nine feet tall, so long was the shimmering tail which snaked down into the water. Now that he was no longer moving, Dipper could see that the ring finger on his right hand bore an ornate signet, studded with sapphires and rubies. His emerald green eyes shone out above the healthy beginnings of a mustache, and a jawline covered in thin stubble.

“Mabel!” Mermando exclaimed, extending his arms. “It’s been far too long. You are even more beautiful than when I last saw you.”

“Mermando?” Mabel asked, standing up hesitatingly, as though unable to believe what she was seeing. She tentatively stepped towards him, opening her own arms up for a hug.

She yelped in surprise when, instead of a hug, Mermando quickly spun her down into a dip, as though they were dancing. His lips pressed against hers, and her eyes went wide.

Dipper, breathing heavily, looked over at Sam—his expression was rapidly oscillating from shock to anger, and back again. He glanced at Dipper, desperate for a cue as to what he should do.

“Oh!” Mabel exclaimed as Mermando released her, and she stood back up, staggering. “There was tongue there. There was tongue there.”

“Pardon my forwardness,” Mermando continued, bowing to the occupants of the deck. “I feared that I would never see you again, and I have been waiting a long time for that.”

“Yeah…” Mabel replied, gently raising her hand to her lips to wipe away the salt water. “So, have… Mermando, what are you even doing here?”

"The better question, dear Mabel, is what are _you_ doing here?” Mermando pointed out with a wink. “I’m a member of the royal family here, and my parents have made me regent of this part of the ocean. But you are humans, and you are in the middle of my domain.”

“We came to investigate,” Dipper announced, pushing forward and stepping in between Mabel and Mermando. “We were picking up strange readings on our equipment about new concentrations of anomalies in this area. I guess we know what caused it now.”

“Ah, Dipper,” Mermando replied, gently reaching for Dipper’s hand and kissing it. “I must thank you again for saving my life those many years ago.” Dipper withdrew his hand and tried to mask his expression of disgust, while Mermando propped himself up on his trident. “But I’m afraid that you are mistaken. My people have lived here for centuries. If it is a new concentration of weirdness, then it cannot be us.”

“Then it’s got to be those monsters that attacked us,” Pacifica offered, reaching out and gently taking Dipper’s right arm. He flinched at her unexpected touch, but soon yielded and allowed her to begin unwrapping the remaining bloody t-shirt. “That’s the only explanation, right?”

“Excuse me, but I don’t believe we’ve met before,” Mermando offered, bowing deeply. “Based on the excellent medical care you are providing for my friend here, I would assume that you’re the resident doctor of the group.”

“Emergency triage,” Pacifica answered, extending her hand out to Mermando. Dipper tightened his grip on Pacifica’s waist as Mermando took her hand and lightly shook it before kissing it and returning it to her. “I’m Pacifica. Dipper’s girlfriend.”

“You don’t look like the redhead he was after all those years ago,” Mermando replied, narrowing his eyes.

“I’m not,” Pacifica replied as she washed away the blood on Dipper’s arm. “He lost that battle, so he had to make do with me.” Dipper looked at her scornfully, though he was well aware that she was being sarcastic.

“Well, I must say that I believe he traded up,” Mermando complimented Pacifica. “Tell me, has his kissing technique gotten any better?” he whispered towards her, though deliberately loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Slightly,” Pacifica laughed, along with everyone else on deck—excepting Dipper. “And your name was Mermando, you said? I don’t believe that I’ve heard much about you other than your brief but passionate love affair with my man.” Dipper turned and lightly batted Pacifica’s hair, causing it to swing around and smack her in the face. She then took great joy in applying the alcoholic wipe to his wounds.

“You are correct,” the merman answered. “I am Mermando. I met the lovely and charming Mabel in the Gravity Falls Public Pool years ago, and she helped me escape back to my family.” Mabel blushed and crossed her arms in front of her chest, becoming increasingly aware that she was still wearing her pajamas.

“And what have you been doing since then?” Sam asked, standing a little straighter and puffing his chest out. “You said you were royalty.”

“I am royalty,” Mermando answered, bowing low before Sam. “But I don’t believe that you and I have met before either.”

“I’m Sam,” the blonde boy offered sharply. “Samuel Southeast. Heir to the Southeast fortune, owner of real estate, avid day trader, and cryptocurrency investor.” Dipper rolled his eyes—Sam’s insecurities were already beginning to show.

“Pleasure to meet you, Sam,” Mermando answered with a smile, extending his hand to Sam. Sam winced at the handshake—as fit as he was, Mermando’s muscles easily overpowered his. “I am sure that your credentials are impressive on land, but we have no need for such commodities under the waves. We just harvest all that we need from old Spanish galleons. Where do you think I got this lovely armor?”

As he spoke, Mermando lightly tapped his metallic chest with the handle of his trident. A clear ringing sound echoed out across the water. The armor appeared to have been immaculately maintained from whenever it had first sunk beneath the waves—such a piece would easily command five figures, and likely more.

Mermando waited a moment for Sam to respond—but, when it became apparent that the boy was at a loss for words, he turned towards Grunkle Stan.

“And you must be Stan,” Mermando offered. “I have never met you formally, but Mabel had told me plenty about you. I can see where she gets her devilishly good looks from.”

“Mabel!” Stan enthused, stepping forward to shake Mermando’s hand. “I like this fish-man. He’s very complimentary.”

“Beauty recognizes beauty,” Mermando answered, grabbing his armor by the shoulder pauldrons and lifting it off of himself. He tossed the metal into the ocean behind him, where it was quickly caught by a waiting attendant.

As Pacifica began to wrap his remaining arm in gauze, Dipper looked over to Sam and Mabel. Both of their eyes were wide at Mermando’s chest—his skin was the color of rich caramel, and perfectly smooth. His abs, toned to perfection by a life spent entirely in the water, rippled beneath his skin. Sam’s admiration was mixed with rage, and Mabel’s with hunger. She licked her lips.

“Yeah, well…” murmured Stan, suddenly aware of his gut. “You’ll get to my level someday,” he joked, trying to remain upbeat.

“With any luck,” chuckled Mermando, before turning to Pacifica. “But we can spend time together later. Right now, I believe we have more pressing concerns.”

“Yeah,” Pacifica offered, tearing off the strip of gauze and preparing to slide the remaining sleeve over Dipper’s arm. “We just got attacked by underwater people. Not underwater people like you—people with actual legs, and sharp teeth, and orange eyes.”

“I was afraid of that,” answered Mermando, his tail drooping even further into the water. “We have been trying to hunt them down for several weeks now, but there always seem to be more than we are able to destroy.”

“How big of a problem are they?” Mabel asked, stepping forward. She was the one who had the closest relationship with Mermando, which made her the natural intermediary between the knowledgeable merman and her intelligent, planning brother.

“Ah, Mabel, I am deeply sorry that this is the occasion of our next meeting,” Mermando continued dramatically, briefly reaching out and taking her by the hand. “I had hoped that we could get together at a water park of some kind. You could carry me up to the top of the slides, and then I could go down them into those big chlorine filled tubs of fresh water and urine.”

“Uhh… okay,” Mabel answered, rubbing her hands on her pajama pants. “That’s a little weird.” She wanted to spit, but found that her mouth was dry.

“But alas!” Mermando exclaimed. “I am afraid that you have returned to my kingdom, and to me, at a time of all-out war.”

“War?” Sam and Dipper exclaimed in unison. Sam’s brain was still at war with itself, trying to reconcile its amazement at the existence of mermen with the anger that Mabel had just made out with a fish in front of him. Adding underwater geopolitics to the cognitive burden doubled the stress. 

“With the… Innsmouths?” Dipper continued, searching for a catchy name for the creatures. With Ford gone, it fell to his protégé to take responsibility for weirdness and all of the conflicts and questions that came along with it. However, it was apparent that the name wasn’t nearly as catchy as that of the dyre.

“Yes, the same devils who attacked you tonight,” Mermando replied as he turned away dramatically, his luxurious hair swinging around his shoulders. “Vampires.”

“Vampires?” asked Pacifica in confusion. That couldn’t possibly be right. “Vampires don’t hang out in the middle of the ocean. They need blood.”

“Besides,” Mabel interjected. “Vampires are hot. Or… at least the ones I’ve met.” A blush teased at her cheeks, before being tamped down by her resolve. “They’re certainly not covered in seaweed and losing their hair. These things looked more like zombies than vampires.”

“We thought they were waterlogged zombies at first too,” Mermando sighed. “But they’re certainly vampires. We were able to capture one and figure that much out, but it didn’t last long. It crumpled, like it was eating itself from the inside out.”

“That’s horrifying,” Dipper answered, making mental notes to jot down in his journal later. “But why would they declare war on your people?”

“That’s what we’re not sure about,” Mermando answered, stroking the stubble on his chin. “They started showing up a few weeks ago and taking my people. They don’t kill them… they just take them away. We don’t know where—we’ve had to put our entire city on lockdown until we can figure out where they came from, and what they want. Still, there have been isolated incidents of the monsters breaching our defenses.”

“Wait!” Stan interjected. “They don’t kill them? They dragged my brother underwater!”

“If they took him alive, then he is most likely safe,” Mermando replied. “Well… maybe ‘safe’ isn’t the right word. He is most likely alive—they have some way of keeping air-breathers supplied with oxygen.”

“Why would they even take them?” Mabel asked, leaning forward. Mermando took her hand again instinctively, and Mabel did not pull away. Sam swallowed.

“Our best theory is food,” Mermando answered, pulling Mabel into a fishy hug. Dipper glanced over at Sam, and found that his face was a blank slate—whatever he was feeling, he was now taking exceptional care to mask it. “Catching warm-blooded animals underwater is much harder than doing it on land. So it makes sense that they would want to keep them alive for as long as possible.”

“They’re going to eat Ford?!” Pacifica exclaimed, her hands flying up to her mouth.

“Not eat,” Mermando corrected. “Drink. Slowly.” Pacifica turned and buried her face in Dipper’s chest. Dipper glared at Mermando, who quickly realized his mistake.

“But!” the merman hastily corrected. “That means that he’s going to be alive for a while longer. We still have time to save him, and maybe figure out why the vampires chose to come underwater to begin with. If we can figure that out, we can drive them away.”

Dipper felt his heart lighten as he considered the prospects ahead of them. Not only was it possible to rescue Ford, but it was likely that whatever forced the vampires underwater was the same force that was causing the strange fluctuations in Gravity Falls and East Asia. Despite his dislike for Mermando, the opportunity he presented couldn’t be passed up.

“What do you mean ‘we’?” Sam exclaimed, stepping forward. Mabel broke free of Mermando’s embrace and stepped in between the two of them. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re humans. You’re… not. We can’t breathe underwater, we can’t survive the pressure, we can’t swim like you do. We’re stuck up here.”

Suddenly, everyone turned to look at Stan as he broke out into a gut-shaking laugh. Dipper and Mabel glanced at each other in concern at their grunkle’s change of humor. His previous distress at Ford’s apparent drowning was wiped away by the hope that he could still be saved.

“I don’t understand,” Mermando whispered into Mabel’s ear. “Is this some joke that you humans have developed in the years I’ve been away?”

“No, no,” Stan replied, spinning and walking towards the hatch. “I’m just laughing at Sam thinking we’re stuck on the surface. If you think my know-it-all brother hasn’t developed everything you might need for scuba diving, then you’re dead wrong.” Still laughing, he vanished into the hull of the ship.

There was silence for a few moments as the teenagers looked at each other. Dipper still held Pacifica in his arms, while Mabel stood between Sam and Mermando. Sam’s hands were balled into tight fists, while Mermando’s expression was one of worry for his people, and delight at seeing Mabel again. His sinuous blue-green tail draped down into the ocean, swaying gently in the water.

“So, Mer _man_ do,” Dipper said, putting emphasis on the center syllable. “You said that they just showed up a few weeks ago. Do you have any idea why?”

“None at all, I’m afraid,” Mermando answered, hanging his head. “We’ve had our best people on it, but we just don’t have an answer. Our research equipment is basic at best.”

“Oh, yeah…” Dipper grimaced. “I guess that makes sense. You’re underwater, so electronics don’t work. That would make it kind of hard to… well, do research.”

“We have some clever workarounds,” Mermando offered. “My people are adapted to life in the sea, obviously. We have a very effective natural sonar system, like whales and dolphins, that we’ve used to track down the place the vampires are coming from. We believe that they have a lair deep within a maze of natural caves. Unfortunately, it’s those very caves that throw off our sonar—we haven’t been able to find the nest itself yet. Plus, those caverns are perfect for being ambused.”

“I don’t see how they can be vampires,” Sam interjected, crossing his arms. Dipper and Mermando looked at him in concern. “I know Pacifica and Mabel already said this,” he stammered, “but they just don’t look the part. Vampires don’t have the glowing eyes, or the weird joints, or the curling nails. There’s got to be a piece to this puzzle that we’re still missing.”

“I wish we could talk to Ford about this…” Dipper whispered under his breath. He started when he felt Pacifica’s hand venture up his back, but relaxed as she began to lightly massage him, rubbing away some of the built-up stress. “He would know what to do.”

“I guess we’ll just have to be smart on our own,” Pacifica offered with a smile. “I know that you and Mabel are smart, and I’m smarter than you. The jury’s still out on Sam.” Sam turned and stuck his tongue out at her, and Pacifica slightly recoiled—what was normally a playful gesture seemed laden with hidden anger.

“You’re right,” Dipper answered, standing up straight and clapping his hands together. “We did plenty of things without Ford before, and we can do them now. We just need to get down there and do a little hands-on research.”

“I’m still confused about how we’re going to do that,” Sam snarked. “Even if we can swim down to this mer-city or whatnot, it’s not like we can stay there without oxygen. We would need so many tanks that it just wouldn’t work—and we’d have to be hooked up to them all the time.”

“Not all the time, Sam,” Mermando smiled. “Ever since my parents put me in charge of this city, I’ve done some renovations just in case we should ever find ourselves with guests like you—and Mabel in particular.” Mabel blushed, and briefly made eye contact with Sam before hastily looking away. “Our city is in a natural cavern, and we’ve carved in small rooms that we’ve pulled air into from the surface. There’s plenty of room for you all to live and sleep for as long as you like—of course, you’ll have all of our hospitality.”

“I’m excited for this,” Pacifica laughed lightly, pulling on Dipper’s arm. “I wasn’t expecting to go to the Bahamas on this trip, much less see an underwater city.”

“Yeah, well, that still doesn’t solve the problem of how we get down there,” Sam spoke up dejectedly—he seemed convinced that it was impossible to do feasibly. Whether it was out of genuine fear of drowning, or a mere desire to get as far away from Mermando as possible was unclear.

“Don’t you worry about that,” chuckled Stan, emerging from the hold carrying two clear plastic totes stacked on top of each other. “In the years we’ve been at sea, Ford has put a lot of work into our scuba gear.”

Dipper grimaced as he raised his arms, helping Stan set the totes down on the deck. Mermando, with Mabel at his side, looked on in interest as Stan began to unpack them.   
  
“I learned from Ford that there are five things you need to worry about underwater,” Stan announced, grunting as he knelt down next to the first tote. “Speed, buoyancy, communication, pressure, and oxygen.”

Reaching into the tote, Stan pulled out a pair of gloves and a pair of strangely stubby flippers. The wrists and ankles of the garments were bulky, and clearly had machinery implanted in them. Dipper reached out and took the flippers, while Pacifica opted for the gloves.

“Ow,” Dipper winced as he ran his fingers over the gloves. They seemed to be covered in paddle-like barbs that terminated in sharp points. Peering into the glove, he could barely make out the fine network of circuits and actuators within them. “What are these supposed to be?”

“Same goes for these flippers,” Pacifica wondered aloud. They were covered in a similar material, though she was being careful enough in handling them that she didn’t get stabbed. The actual flipper portion didn’t extend as far away from the toes as had other flippers that she had seen.

“Those take care of buoyancy and speed,” Stan answered. “Those chambers at the wrist and ankles can either fill with air or water, depending on if you need to go up or down. And the little knives actually move around like oars to push you through the water faster than you could on your own. Kind of like… Ford called them silly-uh, or something.”

“Cilia,” Dipper corrected.

“That’s it,” Stan affirmed, pointing at Dipper. “This is why you’re the smart one.”

“Hey!” Mabel chirped, offended as she placed her hands on her hips. Sam and Mermando both turned to look at her, admiring her personality and posture. Sam’s eyes darkened when he saw Mermando looking at Mabel—Mermando, enraptured by her, noticed nothing.

“At nerd stuff,” Stan quickly amended, before reaching back down into the tote. Mabel, pleased at the correction, crossed her arms and smiled.

“How do these know what to do, though?” Pacifica asked curiously. “I don’t see any buttons.”

“That’s what these are for,” Stan answered, pulling out a set of two white wire headsets. More could be seen rattling around in the bottom of the bucket. “They wirelessly connect to the gloves and flippers, and accept voice commands. They also let you talk to each other, though they are limited by distance.”

“This seems fragile,” Dipper worried as he placed the headset over his ears. Pacifica did the same, struggling slightly with her hair.

“If something goes wrong, all you have to do if slam your feet or hands against something really hard, and they’ll automatically inflate to bring you to the surface,” Stan smiled. “Ford thought of everything.” Clearing his throat, he looked down and moved over to the unopened tote, wincing as he walked on his knees.

“If you go up that fast, you’re going to have more bubbles in your blood than a shaken soda,” Sam chastised. “And that never ends well.”

“I don’t understand why you don’t trust me,” Stan fired back as he reached into the second tote. “I told you that Ford thought of everything, and I promise that I was telling the truth.”

Stan reached into the tote and pulled out a loose and baggy wetsuit—it seemed more like a rubber trash bag than something meant to be worn. He passed it to Sam, who took it in confusion before holding it up. The massive body and limbs of the suit flopped out onto the deck.

“I don’t think this fashion statement of a rubber tire is going to help with depressurization,” Sam chided.

“That’s because you don’t understand how it works,” Stan answered, rolling his eyes. “I barely understand how it works. Put it on, and I’ll explain as best I can.”

“Ooh, can I try it?” Mabel chimed in, hopping forward to Sam. A dreamy smile crossed Mermando’s face as she took the suit from Sam without complaint.

“Uhh… sure,” Sam sighed, his expression downcast. His eyes brightened considerably, though when Mabel simply turned the suit around and thrust it back into his hands.

“You were holding it backwards,” Mabel smiled. “I need someone to hold it so I can get into it.” A stormy expression briefly furrowed Mermando’s brow, though it soon emanated into nothingness.

One leg at a time, Mabel stepped into the baggy wetsuit, struggling to force her feet all the way through the legs, and her arms out of the sleeves. Even holding her limbs as directly away from her as she could, she was still swallowed by the fabric. 

“Zip me up,” she instructed Sam, turning around and exposing her still open back. Reaching out, Sam grabbed the heavy-duty zipper as gingerly as possible and pulled it up to her neck.

“Even dressed as horrifyingly polluting plastic, your fashion sense is impeccable,” Mermando chuckled.

“Okay, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel began, waddling as she turned around. Only her head, feet, and hands were visible, the rest of her concealed in the folds of rubber.

“Push the button on the neck,” Stan grunted as he grabbed an ovular glass-faced mask from the tote. With an excited expression on her face, Mabel craned her fingers up to her neckline and felt around until she found the button in question. She pressed it with a sharp click.

Her yelp of surprise was almost completely drowned out by the immense noise of the suction created as the air was vacuumed out from inside the suit. Within seconds, the fabric of the suit was pressed tight around her body, a protective second skin.

“Now that’s a fashion statement,” chuckled Pacifica, admiring the two-toned color scheme of silver and navy blue. Even though it covered her entire body, it was somehow even more flattering than her swimsuit.

“Yeah,” Mermando and Sam exhaled in unison. Sam, quickly realizing what he had done, looked away.

Pacifica rolled her eyes at their predictability, and refocused on Stan as he advanced towards Mabel with the mask.

“The suit will take care of the pressure,” he nodded, gently lowering the mask down over Mabel’s face. “The fabric is made of three layers. The outermost is made of regular wetsuit material, but hardened and reinforced with that stuff Ford smears his trench coats with. The innermost layer is soft and comfortable, and adjusts for temperature. The middle layer is made of thousands of tiny little gizmos that Ford tells me are called ‘actuators.’ They automatically compensate for the pressure—and the deeper you go, the stronger they get. And all of this is waterproof, of course.”

“I guess that just leaves oxygen,” Mabel chimed in, her voice echoing around inside the mask. It covered her entire face in a single glass panel, making her seem more like an astronaut than a diver, though there was still space in the back for her hair to emerge. On either side of her mouth, emerging out from the mask, were circular pieces of black metal, not unlike a gas mask. “I guess that’s what this is for.”

“Mostly,” Stan sighed. “The masks are high tech—they’ve got all kinds of sensors and a head’s up display, but air regulation is still basic. Those rebreathers will help preserve your oxygen, but you’ll still need to take a tank. Not even Ford’s figured that out yet.”

“That’s because Ford didn’t ask us,” Mermando chimed in. Everyone looked at him as he turned around. “Traer suficiente de las algas oxigenantes para seis personas,” he called out to the merman with the short haircut who had been obediently waiting behind him for the entire conversation. “Encuéntrenos en el portón.” The silver-tailed soldier nodded, and then vanished beneath the waves. 

“What was that?” Sam asked defensively.

“You’ve focused too much on mechanical things,” Mermando chuckled, his soft Spanish accent infecting even his laughter. “Since electricity doesn’t work below the waves, we’ve dedicated ourselves to improving what we already have.”

“And you’ve found a way to create oxygen from nothing!?” Dipper asked, eyes wide. “This isn’t just revolutionary for going underwater, it changes space travel, it changes everything!”

“Well, not from nothing,” Mermando cautioned. “We’ve taken a strain of algae and bred it until it’s photosynthetic reactions take place almost instantaneously. If you place it inside your masks, it will take the water and carbon dioxide from your breath and turn it into more than enough oxygen for you.”

“How does that work with no sun, though?” Pacifica asked curiously. “If you live in a cavern underground there’s no way the algae could work.”

“We mix the algae with bioluminescent chemicals,” Mermando answered, clearly pleased to be able to contribute to the mission. “It’s a delicate balance, but it works.”

“Color me impressed,” Stan murmured to himself as he picked up another mask from the tote. “I think we can take out the filters in the rebreathers and fill them with your magic air plant. I’m good enough an engineer for that.”

“Good,” Mermando smiled, his gap-toothed smile stretching from ear to ear. “I think that’s everything that you’ll need to come down with me. We can make the journey in the morning.”

“Wait, are we really going to do this?” Mabel asked, turning to look at her brother—still encapsulated in her skintight wetsuit and large mask, she looked as though her head was trapped inside an egg. “I trust Mermando, but Dipper—we have no idea what’s down there. We saw how bad those monsters were up here.”

Dipper looked at Pacifica, who gazed up at him with wide eyes as she held onto the flippers. He searched her eyes for an answer—and, in a few seconds, they both came to one. Their steely resolve met each other’s and strengthened into an indomitable will.

“We are,” Dipper announced. Stan behind him smiled. “It’s the only way we’re going to save Ford and figure out what’s happening here. We can help the merpeople, and hopefully learn more about how to help Gravity Falls.”

“That’s my boy,” Stan murmured to himself—just loud enough for Pacifica to hear and smile.

“Mermando,” Dipper began, stepping forward and putting aside his personal dislike of the merman. “We’re with you on this. What do we need to do?” Dipper yelped as he was suddenly pulled into a hug. Mermando, still damp with saltwater, completely soaked his shirt. Pacifica smirked, glad that she had put the waterproof covers on her boyfriend’s arms.

“I am glad to have you by my side,” Mermando smiled, placing a hand on Dipper’s shoulder. “And I shall be glad to show Mabel my home, and introduce you all to my kingdom.”

“Princedom,” Sam whispered, inaudible to all but himself.

“Let’s get the air plant first,” Stan replied, cracking his knuckles. Now that there was a feasible plan in place to rescue his brother, he was going to stop at nothing to make it happen. “When will you be able to bring that to us?”

“We shall get it at the gate!” Mermando announced. “The entrance to my home lies a few miles to the west, at a place your people call Hogsty Reef. Follow me, and I shall guide you to it! My tiburónes will keep us safe from the vampires on the way.”

“Alright then!” bellowed Stan, pumping his fists in the air and turning towards the wheelhouse. As nimble as a monkey, he ascended the ladder and began inputting coordinates into the computer—there would be an entourage of merfolk to guide them, but it was better to be safe.

“I’m going to go inside and start packing,” Dipper announced, turning and kissing Pacifica on the forehead. “I know Ford has some waterproof bags down there.”

“Make sure you pack my nice dress!” Pacifica called out to him.

“We’re going to be wearing those vacuum wetsuits all the time,” answered Dipper, turning around in confusion. “Plus, we’re working with limited space. We have to just bring the necessities.”

“Looking good is a necessity!” replied Pacifica adamantly. “I can wear it over the wetsuit.”

“If you want the dress, come and pack it yourself!” laughed Dipper, returning to the hatch.

“If you insist,” teased Pacifica, wrapping her hands around her boyfriend’s neck and following him into the living quarters of the ship. She was still carrying the first-aid supplies that needed to be disposed of, and Dipper would need to build a new hammock, but that could be done in time.

“I’m sorry about that,” Mabel apologized, turning to the royal merman who gazed at her affectionately. “They can be gross.”

“Mabel,” said Mermando, extending his hand towards her. Instinctively, she reached out and took it. “I hope to one day be as gross as that. I am glad that you have come back to me, after all this time.”

Slowly, Mermando started to lean in for a kiss. Mabel glanced from side to side, running out of space to navigate. Making a choice and turning her head, she leaned in and gently pecked him on the mouth, her own lips tightly sealed.

“So am I, Mermando,” Mabel answered, her body feeling like it was simultaneously carved from ice and smoking with heat. “But we have work to do now. Let’s do that before we talk.”

“There shall be plenty of time to talk,” Mermando assured her. “Don’t worry about that. My only regret is that I have to get back into the water to guide the way, and can’t ride with you.

“Like you said,” smirked Mabel, placing a hand on the merman’s broad chest. “There’s plenty of time to talk.” Playfully, she pushed him off of the railing.

He flailed for a moment, panicking before he realized what was happening. Before he hit the water, he had reoriented himself and given Mabel an impressed nod.

Holding onto his trident, he turned on a dime and swam forwards, his powerful tail propelling him up and above the water.

“To Hogsty and the gate!” he called out, gesturing forward before diving back into the sea. In the wheelhouse far above, Stan gave a whoop of eager approval.

Then, there was no sound but the wind gently blowing across the gunwales, and the waves slowly rocking the ship back and forth. The two figures remaining on the deck took a moment to savor the silence as the stars twinkled in the quilt of the night above.

It had only been an hour since they had first awoken with panicked screams to what was, apparently, a vampire stalking the inside of the ship. But, since then, so much had changed—the field upon which they played was now radically different. Ford was gone, and the teenagers would be descending in the morning to a city of merfolk under siege—the happy vacation they had hoped for had never seemed farther away.

“Are you coming?” Mabel asked, turning to face Sam. Sam inhaled sharply, shaking his head to restore his focus and calm his pulse. The sight of Mabel and Mermando before him had been so dramatic that he had receded within himself, his inner monologue seeming to be the only voice speaking any sense.

“Sorry, what?” he clarified, placing his hands into his pockets before taking them back out again. He was unsure of how to stand.

“Are you coming to pack?” Mabel repeated, gesturing towards the hatch like an offering.

“Yeah!” Sam answered with mock enthusiasm. “I can’t wait for… this.” A taut, false smile was stretched over his face to meet Mabel’s real one as the two teenagers walked side by side to the hatch.

With Stan at the wheel, the engines behind them roared to life. The _Stan o’ War II_ surged forward as Mermando swam alongside, guiding the way. Behind Mermando was a troupe of guards, protecting both their prince and the ship he had chosen to shelter.

Sam walked next to Mabel all the way to the hatch—but, as the brunette stepped into the hull, he paused and looked to starboard as the royal merman sprang from the water and did a flip, his hair flowing behind him in a cascading wave. The splash as he reentered the water rained droplets on the blonde boy’s face.

Sam’s eyes narrowed as he, too, descended into the shadowy hold.


	19. Descend

“Are you sure you’ll be fine up here by yourself?” Mabel asked as she inhaled and pressed the button on her neck, causing her wet suit to seal up around her. Now that she was prepared for it, the sensation almost felt like a full-body hug. 

“Someone needs to watch the ship, kiddo,” smiled Stan as he helped Dipper step into his wetsuit. Stan, grabbing it by the back of the neck, yanked it up and caused Dipper to yelp. Pacifica, standing next to him, smirked. “Besides,” Stan continued, “I’m getting a little old for any real deep sea diving. Shallow water is fine, but it sounds like you kids are going in deep.”

“I assure you,” Mermando promised, his tail gently swaying in the water as he hovered next to the _Stan o’ War II,_ “our city is perfectly safe. And, we will have a contingent of tiburónes around your vessel at every moment. The vampires won’t be able to get within a hundred feet.” 

“Good,” replied Dipper, vacuum-sealing his own wetsuit, and then tugging at the crotch to readjust himself. “I doubt they’d attack this close to the entrance of your kingdom anyway.” 

“You’d be surprised,” Mermando grimaced. “It may look peaceful in the daylight, but once the sun goes down, they get much bolder.” Dipper, squinting his eyes, looked up and around the ship, taking in the scenery. 

The _Stan o’ War II_ had anchored in between two submerged sandbars, only tiny portions of which emerged above the water. Outside of the sandbars, the floor of the ocean quickly plunged down a depth of thousands of feet—within the lagoon, however, the water was shallow and clear, with the bottom plainly visible. Off to one side of Hogsty Reef was a large ship that had been there for decades and was slowly rusting away to nothingness—if there had ever been a name on the ship, it had long since been erased by time and the sea. The sun, shining in the cloudless sky, glistened off the calm blue waters and gave the brown of the wrecked vessel a seemingly endless rainbow of red and green variations. 

No other ships were visible on the horizon—Hogsty Reef, despite being in a relatively calm and beautiful part of the Caribbean, was not a major tourist destination. It appeared that few people, even locals, ever visited. On the surface, there simply wasn’t that much to see, and even less land to walk on. Beneath the waves, however, Mermando promised that the true beauty of the location would become apparent. 

“Yeah,” Stan continued, picking up one of the masks for the wetsuits and handing it to Sam, who stood reclining against the railing, already in his suit. “I’ll be fine. Besides, you’ve got your Weslee. If there’s anything you need to talk to me about, you can call me on it.” 

“The Weslee is waterproof, right?” Pacifica asked as she turned to face away from her boyfriend. He reached over to her, and, with a slight tug, closed the trash bag of a wet suit around her. She took a deep breath and pressed the button on the neck. 

She gasped as the air was sucked out of the suit, the rubber fabric pulling tight around her—she had known what to expect, but was still surprised by how intense the pressure was. She quickly turned away from the group and attempted to pull the material of the suit away from her chest—it was adhering to her a little more tightly than she was comfortable with. 

“Of course it’s waterproof!” Stan laughed. “My brother wouldn’t build a fancy cell phone out of alien metal without at least making sure that you could accidentally drop it in the toilet.” 

“Well, the ocean is a little bit different than a toilet,” Sam spat into the air. “At least, I’m assuming it is. I don’t know how you merpeople do your business.” 

“We have a current than carries it away from the city,” Mermando answered, not embarrassed in the slightest. “Public sanitation is a major concern for us, given that we also breathe water. Ever since my parents put me in charge here, I’ve been working with our engineers to improve the system.” 

“That’s good, at least,” Sam acknowledged as he pulled on the helmet. “We won’t have to worry about cholera like the pioneers.” 

As Sam pulled his mask over his face, Stan handed the remaining masks out to the other three teens. Since arriving at Hogsty Reef the previous night, he and Dipper had been hard at work replacing the mechanisms within the rebreathers with the specialized algae that Mermando had brought up from the depths. 

Two pockets of the plants sat on either side of the masks, leaving the mouth of the person wearing them visible. The only sign that anything was different was in the colors—looking in from the outside, you could faintly see the green of the algae, while the face of the person wearing the mask was backlit by the blue light emanating from the phosphorescent chemicals used to power the chlorophyll. 

Other than a brief test, however, the extended usage of the masks had yet to be explored. Everyone watched as Sam took his first breath within the mask, waiting for his verdict. He sniffed the air and crinkled his nose at the odor. 

“It smells a little fishy,” he pronounced, his voice reverberating out from inside the mask. It was barely audible as it was, and it would be impossible to hear him normally underwater—once the headsets were put on, however, that would no longer be a concern. “But it seems to be working.” 

“Great,” Dipper replied, giving a thumbs up before turning to Stan. “We’ll be back with Ford as soon as we can.” 

“Just be careful,” Stan replied, pulling his great-nephew in for a hug. “He wouldn’t want you to get hurt too.” 

“We’ll be fine,” Dipper smiled, pointing at the four waterproof bags that lay next to the gunwale. “We’ve got all the toys we need for fighting vampires, even underwater.” 

“And clothes? And snacks? And bandages?” Stan asked, keeping his voice intentionally gruff. 

“All present and accounted for,” Pacifica answered, walking up next to Dipper and Mabel. The only one not standing in the circle was Sam, who already had his helmet on and was looking down into the water. 

“Then I guess you’re good to go,” Stan shrugged, picking up one of the waterproof bags as Dipper pulled his helmet down over his hair and cinched the seal against his skin. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, but soon became adjusted to the new source of oxygen. 

Dipper took the bag from Stan and gave him a final, firm handshake—taking care to keep the barbs on his gloves in the closed position—before walking over to the gate in the railing. Mermando, swimming shirtless beneath them, backpedaled to give him room to jump in. 

Dipper turned to Sam, who nodded in response to whatever he said—their words were inaudible to anyone not wearing the white wire headsets. He then opened his waterproof bag, confirming that his journal was in it before resealing it. Taking a deep breath, he jumped into the water. Sam, picking up another of the waterproof bags, soon followed. Mermando disappeared beneath the waves to greet them. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to come, Grunkle Stan?” Mabel asked, opening her arms for a hug. “Last chance.” 

“I’m sure,” Stan chuckled, squeezing her tightly. She barely felt the pressure, as the wetsuit automatically compensated. “Besides, I’ve got plenty to do up here.” 

Pacifica watched as his eyes flitted over to the laboratory, where the teleportation engine still sat on the worktable, hooked up to the coding laptop. His gaze narrowed with focus, before quickly returning to open-hearted compassion. 

“Just don’t be stupid,” Mabel cautioned. “We’ll be back in a few days, and we’ll keep you updated on what’s happening.” 

“I promise to be my normal level of stupid,” Stan laughed as Mabel turned towards the waterproof bags. 

Before she picked one up, however, she quickly rushed back to give Stan another hug. He grunted at the impact, but soon wrapped his arms around her. Mabel was sniffling loudly as she turned away again, breathing heavily as she pulled her mask on. She knew full well the dangers of the mission—they were going underwater to rescue Ford, and leaving Stan alone on the ship. Even with a contingent of merfolk guards, she didn’t want to be away any longer than she had to. 

Fixing her hair around her mask, she grabbed ahold of the third waterproof bag and walked to the edge of the ship. Mermando briefly popped up from the waves to beckon her in—her sad expression hastily switched out for one of enthusiasm and joy. She looked back at Stan one more time before jumping into the ocean with a splash. 

Pacifica, left alone on the deck with the twins’ grunkle, watched as his eyes followed his family down into the water. Once again, he briefly glanced at the teleportation engine, battling between being overwhelmed with the emotion of seeing his relatives leave him mere hours after his brother had been kidnapped, and his paternal desire to get to work and make something happen. 

“We’ll find him, Stan,” Pacifica offered, her voice barely a whisper as she walked up behind the older man and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know we will.” 

“So do I,” Stan murmured, his hand reaching up and clasping over Pacifica’s. As strong and warm as it was, Pacifica could feel the tremble in his bones. “Just make sure you don’t get into any trouble.” 

“When have we ever gotten into trouble?” Pacifica smirked, lifting up her helmet and pulling it over her head. Her hair, bound into a long ponytail, was intricately laced through the straps on the back. She gasped as she felt the seal tighten around her skin, and her breathing shift to the algae within the mask. She took a deep breath, the air now saltier, yet somehow cleaner. 

“I don’t know,” Stan shrugged, forcing a smile over his face. “It just seems to be a talent of the Pines.” 

“I’m a Northwest, though,” Pacifica answered, walking on her heels over to the edge of the ship and gripping onto the railing. Beneath her, the darting silhouettes of the mermen and the much bulkier, clumsier silhouettes of the other teens were rotating in a slow circle, waiting for her to join them. 

“That’s even worse, blondie,” Stan laughed, as he walked up behind her. “Now get going. Believe it or not, I think you’ve got more common sense than Dipper does.” 

With that vote of confidence, Pacifica looked to her right to see the smiling face of Grunkle Stan. His eyes were red and lined with worry, but his smile spoke of hope. Pacifica nodded, picked up the final waterproof bag, and leapt into the water. 

At first, she braced herself for a shock of cold as she plunged into the sea. As the pearlescent bubbles faded from in front of her mask, however, she realized that she felt no different than she had on land—it was as though she had barely gotten wet at all, though she could clearly feel the tickle of the currents on the exposed back of her neck as her hair flared out. If anything, she felt warmer than she had on the surface. 

“Pacifica, can you read us?” Dipper’s voice rang out, crackling over the wire headset in her ear. She looked around, and saw the three other teenagers all floating in the midst of the water—their gloves and flippers were shimmering as the miniature paddles on them oscillated, keeping them relatively stationary. 

“Yeah, I’ve got you,” Pacifica replied, looking down at her own hands as she got used to swimming. She tentatively pushed against the water, and felt herself move much farther along than she would have without the gloves. “Have you got me?” 

“You’re coming through loud and clear!” Mabel responded, her own hair a majestic sail floating behind her. 

“All connections look good,” Sam confirmed with a smile, before looking around in confusion. “Dipper,” he began asking, “how are we going to talk to Mermando?” 

“Don’t worry about that,” Mermando chuckled, swimming up from in between them. His long and sinuous motions spiraled around each of the humans, moving in his natural element with a flexibility no land-dweller could have. “Our ears are adapted for the water. We’ll hear anything you say.” As though to make his point, he came to hasty stop that sent his hair floating up and around his ears. The particular pattern of cartilage and folds did seem subtly different from that of a human’s. 

“And our helmets have tiny microphones built into the outsides,” Dipper continued, pointing to a small mesh grate on the left side of the glass masks. “Anything that comes in gets beamed to the headsets.” 

“Sounds good, then,” Pacifica smiled as she drifted in the water. She wanted to really let loose, and see how it would feel to swim as fast as she could in the fancy wetsuit, but knew that there were more important matters at hand. Besides, she was holding onto one of the waterproof bags. “Where do we go now?” 

As she spoke, everyone looked around the lagoon in the center of Hogsty Reef. Indeed, it seemed to be nothing more than a flat plane of sand. The only discrepancies were small ripples on the seafloor, and the shadow of the _Stan o’ War II_ as it drifted in the waves. The anchor chain groaned, clicked, and strained as it shifted in the water. 

“It wouldn’t be much of a hidden merfolk city if just anyone could find it, now would it?” Mermando smirked as he swam over to Mabel. He took the bag from her hands and passed it off to one of his waiting attendants. “Feel free to give your bags to my _servidoramoras,_ ” he gestured as two mermaids swam to the sides of Dipper, Sam, and Pacifica, and took their bags. 

“Thanks,” Dipper offered with a slight bow as he stretched the muscles in his arms. His wounds from the previous night’s battle were still nowhere near healed, but he was able to swim with the assistance of his gloves and flippers. Pacifica nodded in appreciation to the servant who took her bag. 

“So,” Mabel smiled, doing a flip in the water to test her now liberated movement. “Where to now?” 

“Now?” Mermando shrugged with a smile, reaching out and taking her by the hand. Instinctively, the spines on her gloves lay flat. “Now, they just need to try and keep up.” He turned his head and offered a wink to Dipper, Pacifica, and Sam. 

Then, with a flash, he was gone, taking off through the water at almost the speed of a car. Mabel held onto his hand, desperately squealing as she slowly started swimming alongside him, instead of being merely dragged behind. His shimmering blue-green tail was easy to spot as they receded towards the sandbar that held the wrecked remains of the rusting ship. 

“Race you?” Dipper offered with a shrug as he turned to Pacifica. 

“It won’t be much of a race,” Pacifica smiled as she drew her legs up underneath her. As she prepared to explode into motion, however, a confused look crossed her face as she looked out in the direction that Mermando had gone with Mabel—Sam was already halfway there, his limbs flailing madly in the sea and churning up a cloud of bubbles. 

“Looks like we’ve got some ground to make up,” Dipper announced as, with a quick kick of his legs, he started following the others, Pacifica a half second behind him. Before vanishing into the depths, however, Dipper quickly spun around to look back up at Stan—his quivering silhouette was framed by the sun, looking down into the sea. He raised his hand in a gesture of farewell—Dipper returned it, and then flipped back over. 

At first, their movements were short and jumpy as they adapted to the way their flippers and gloves maneuvered to help propel them forward. They would travel for about fifteen feet incredibly quickly before slowing down dramatically as they drew in their legs and arms, trying to reset their stroke. 

Swimming side-by-side and watching each other, however, soon taught them the most efficient way to swim with their equipment. Bending at the hips, their legs made a single, curving motion like the tail of a dolphin, pushing them forward with consistent speed. Their arms, meanwhile, mimicked the breaststroke, providing stability and an additional burst of speed. 

Dipper, with his long frame, large hands, and gangly arms, soon began outstripping Pacifica in terms of sheer speed, though they were both accelerating dramatically. It wasn’t long before they approached Sam, who had yet to figure out the ideal method of swimming. 

“I thought you were supposed to be good at this!” chided Pacifica as she glided past the blonde boy, with Dipper slowing down on his left. “You’re the one who surfs all the time.” 

“Yeah, well it’s a bit different underwater with these fancy gloves!” Sam called out as he tried to stabilize his movements. He didn’t seem to have any kind of coordinated stroke that he was sticking to—instead, his arms and legs seemed to be flailing independently of any reason, just trying to move him forward. 

“Fair enough,” called Dipper, turning around to swim on his back briefly, unable to resist the temptation of showing off. “It does take some getting used to. Just try this!” 

With that, he flipped back over and began swimming normally—his legs doing a coordinated dolphin kick, with his arms providing a stabilizing boost. Pacifica took the opportunity to increase her own speed, surging forward in the water. She could feel her heart pulsing and her breathing become heavier as she exerted herself, but the algae in her mask seemed to be more than enough to recycle her spoiled air into oxygen. 

Sam slowed down for a moment as he brought his limbs together, and then began to mimic Dipper. After a few moments of practice, he began to increase in speed as well—after all, he did have the most swimming experience out of any of them, and he was even taller than Dipper. He just needed a little push to figure out the right way forward. 

“Now we’ve got a race,” Dipper murmured to himself as the three teens surged forward in formation, almost like airplanes as they pursued Mabel and Mermando. They would never be able to move as fast as the merman, but they were still making pretty good time as they followed the shimmer of his blue-green tail, and the navy-and-silver glimmer of Mabel’s wetsuit.

After a few minutes of swimming, they saw that Mermando was slowing down, and Mabel’s arms were cartwheeling beside him as she attempted to halt her momentum. The rusted wreck of the crashed ship was just on the other side of the sandbar, casting its jagged shadow over a slight depression in the seafloor. Mermando, his gills pumping, barely visible beneath his jawline, turned and waited for the others as they approached. 

“From now on,” Sam began as he approached the prince, “don’t drag people off without warning.” Dipper arrived a few seconds later, with Pacifica slightly behind him. Pacifica looked around where they had stopped, noticing several odd niches that were hidden in the sandbar—within them, she could see the glinting eyes and armor of merfolk soldiers. 

“I assure you that Mabel was safe at all times,” Mermando answered, raising his hand. “I would not put her in harm’s way. Plus, you were protected as well, by my finest tiburónes.” 

“It’s not about protection,” Sam answered, his voice firm. “It’s about wanting to stay together. You may be used to this, but we’re not, and we all need a little time to get adjusted.” 

“Mabel?” Mermando asked, turning to face the girl—hers was the only opinion that he could be counted on to immediately listen to. “What do you think?” 

“Well,” Mabel shrugged, rubbing her sore shoulders and shaking her head to try and reposition the few stray hairs that had drifted down in front of her face. “It was a little too fast.”

“Oh!” Mermando exclaimed, as though he had been hurt. “You have my sincerest apologies. I forgot that you are used to dealing with air pressure, not water pressure. I assure you that I will not make this mistake again!”

“Thank you, Mermando,” Mabel replied, reaching out and touching him on the shoulder. A blush darkened his already ruddy cheeks as he turned to his guards—as far as he was concerned, Mabel’s word on the matter was final.

The humans watched as Mermando swam into the shadow of the ship, directly over the faint pit in the sandy seafloor. He gently rested his tail against the bottom of the pit, and began thumping it against the ground. At the same time, he let loose a series of dolphin-like whistles and chirps that penetrated the water far more effectively than voices did. Everyone winced as their audio systems decreased in volume, compensating for the high frequencies. 

“Now,” Mermando continued, swimming back over to the group and placing his arms around Mabel’s and Sam’s shoulders simultaneously. “Watch this.” Mabel’s eyes were transfixed on the pit in front of them, while Sam couldn’t tear his glare away from the face of the merman. 

With a deep groaning sound, more like the song of a whale than that of a dolphin, the bottom of the pit began to rise up through the water. Bubbles were released from within the chasm as the stone panel was pulled up, and wet sand sloughed off of it in rippling chunks. 

Peering down into the depths revealed by the trapdoor, they could see a complex mechanism of weights, levers, and pulleys that allowed for the door to be opened from beneath. The inner walls of the tunnel were covered in a glowing material similar to that being used to power the algae in their masks. Mounted to the underside of the door, and seeming to trail far away into the depths of the cavern, was a single guide rope. 

“This is the entrance to your city?” Sam asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked back at Mermando. “It’s a hole in the ground.”

“Looks can often be deceiving,” Dipper pointed out, unable to wipe the eager grin off his face at the prospect of what lay beneath. “You wouldn’t think that gnomes would be too much of a problem, but I assure you that they are.”

“This is the entrance to the _highway_ to my city,” Mermando corrected, taking Mabel by the hand more gently this time, and floating over the top of the pit. “The tunnels lead many places beneath the sea, but only one is my home. And that is the one I shall take you to, if you would like to follow me.” 

“Dipper?” Pacifica asked, looking over at her boyfriend. It was one thing to talk about doing this, and another to swim with merfolk at the very top of the ocean where the sun was still shining. It was categorically different to willingly swim into a sea cave—especially one lit only by dim algae. 

“This can’t be any worse than Omega, right?” Dipper asked in return, looking at his girlfriend with a similar expression of worry. He wanted reassurance as much as she did. “We got through that okay.” 

“Yeah, but we didn’t have to worry about breathing or being crushed,” Pacifica fired back. “All we were concerned with was starvation and a shapeshifter lurking in the dark.” 

“How does that sound better than this?” Dipper replied, looking down into the blue chasm. Soon, though, a steely resolve came over his face. “But, this time, we’re not just getting some wires. We’re getting Ford.” 

“Exactly,” Pacifica sighed, reaching out and taking Dipper’s hand. “And he’s worth some risk to save.” 

“Then let’s get to it,” Dipper announced, looking over at Sam, who slowly nodded in confirmation. The tight lines around his eyes revealed his equal level of fear—but he wasn’t about to be left on the surface with only tiburónes and Stan for company. 

Taking a deep breath of algae-scented air, the three remaining humans stepped off of the sandy seafloor and into the pit. There was a slight whirring sound as their wrist and ankle chambers filled with water, pulling them more steadily down into the darkness. Mermando, from above them, gave a chirp, and then sank into the chasm holding onto Mabel. 

There was a horrific grinding sound as the panel above them closed, the thin strip of sunlight that penetrated the sea becoming narrower and narrower until finally, it vanished. The only source of light was now the faint chemical glow around them, and the only tactile sensation was the guideline that they clung to with desperation. 

“Dipper?!” Mabel whispered nervously, even in Mermando’s arms. The merman’s brow furrowed at her worry. “I can’t see anything!” 

“Hmm…” Mermando murmured. “I may have failed to account for this. Our eyes are much more sensitive to these light sources than yours are. I assure you that the main city is much brighter.” 

“Not to worry, Mermando,” Dipper replied, a smile evident in his voice. “We have it under control. Everyone, tell your helmets to activate the HUDs.” Pacifica, who was clinging to Dipper’s shoulder for stability in the darkness, finally wrapped her legs around the guideline. 

Simultaneously, they all said “Activate HUD” in as clear voices as they could manage. 

Pacifica almost winced as imagery began to appear on the glass of the mask, so bright were digital displays against the blackness of the outside. Slowly, information began to populate her visual field—temperature, pressure, depth, ballast, and time. 

Her eyes grew wide in amazement as a grid of blue lasers was projected onto the walls of the cavern, and a small, three dimensional map of the space around her appeared in the the upper right. She could see exactly where she was, and how close she was to the walls of the cavern. A new number appeared in the upper left—her distance to the nearest solid surface.

Finally, the grid of blue lasers faded, and the cavern began to come into sharper view as a night-vision filter was applied to the image coming through the glass. Other than a faint green tinge, it was as though they were looking at their surroundings in broad daylight. The only thing that made it slightly disconcerting was the total lack of shadows. 

“Better?” Dipper asked, looking up at Mabel. Now that they could see, it almost looked as though everyone was flying, instead of swimming. 

“Better,” Mabel confirmed, looking down at Dipper. Sam and Pacifica gave thumbs-up to indicate their agreement. The night vision still required some small amount of light to work, so if they ever found themselves in a completely dark space, it would be useless—but for now, it was more than sufficient.

“Good,” sighed Mermando as he flipped over and started to swim downwards. “I was concerned that we may have had to call the mission off. I am glad your technology is capable enough for me to show you my home.”

With that, Mermando began leading the way down into the tunnels, his tail lazily lapping from side to side as the humans struggled to reorient themselves. Facing downwards, all of the blood rushed to their heads, which made it difficult to focus or coordinate their movements. Instead, they recalibrated their gloves and flippers to push them downwards instead of forwards, allowing them to sink right-side up.

“Tell me, Dipper,” Pacifica asked as they all slowly sank down into the depths, the closed hatch above receding farther and farther into the distance. It looked as though everyone was gently reclining—the calmest skydive in history. The only one who was facing downwards was Mermando, who still needed to propel himself manually. “Why haven’t we used these masks before? They would have been better than those flashlights in the alien ship.”

“I wasn’t planning on scuba diving then!” Dipper defended himself. “Plus, I didn’t even know that Ford had these. I think they’re probably something that he kept on the boat. They’d be a lot more useful on a boat than they would in Gravity Falls.”

“You could go scuba diving in the lake,” Mabel suggested, spinning as she did so. Unlike the more casual Dipper, Pacifica, and Sam, she was actively cartwheeling around in the water, enjoying the sensation of free fall. Mermando spun around as she did so, keeping a smiling eye on her the whole time. “There’s probably some interesting stuff down there.”

“Not that much,” Mermando offered with a shrug, thinking back to the time he had swum around the lake before continuing his journey back to his family after Mabel had set him free. “There’s an old building that it looks like someone abandoned. Nothing there but fish now.”

“And a giant head that eats people,” Dipper replied. “That’s more than enough reason for me not to go back, thank you.”

“I didn’t get eaten,” Mermando replied. “Maybe you just shouldn’t make the giant head angry.”

“I wonder what mer-people taste like,” Sam wondered aloud. Every neck immediately craned to look at him—Dipper, Pacifica, and Mabel were appalled at the rude manners of someone who had been raised in high society. Thankfully, Mermando and his tiburónes seemed to understand it as a joke—Sam had no chance of beating one of them in a fight, and they all knew it.

“A good question,” Mermando laughed. “I wouldn’t know. Cannibalism is generally frowned upon here. There was one incident in 1847 with a trading group crossing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, but that doesn’t happen too often.”

“It’s an interesting thought, though,” Sam continued. “I mean, would the top half taste like red meat, and the bottom taste like fish? And if so, are we talking more salmon or whitefish?”

“Sam!” Pacifica scolded loudly. “Don’t talk like that. It’s being rude to our hosts.”

Pacifica withdrew slightly, feeling herself tapping into the commanding ‘mom-tone’ that she had first used during the shapeshifter incident. The power that such a voice held still frightened her.

“What?” Sam asked, throwing his hands in the air. “Don’t act like you’ve never wondered what people would taste like. This isn’t that weird.” 

At that moment, he glanced up at Mabel and saw her glaring at him. He swallowed, and reconsidered. 

“Okay, fine, you’re right,” Sam admitted, holding his hands in the air suppliantly. “A better question, then. Why do you all speak Spanish?”

“Blame the conquistadors,” Mermando answered, spiraling around. Looking down, they could barely see where the central shaft terminated and split off into branching pathways. “They were the first non-native land people we encountered and, as it turns out, they were just as good at colonizing underwater as they were on land. We started interacting more and more, and their language just won out.”

“What does your native language sound like?” Mabel asked, cocking her head to the side curiously.

Mermando looked up at her, and let loose with a series of squeaks and squawking sounds, but with more variation on the lower range than a dolphin would have. Once he was done speaking, Mermando laughed merrily at Mabel’s appalled expression.

“It’s not a lost language, but it just doesn’t sound as good as a Romance language,” the merman laughed. “Even to us.”

“I just can’t believe that people encountered actual mermaids,” Dipper chimed in, shaking his head. “Most people back then thought they had just found manatees.”

“Yeah…” Mermando replied, facing away from Dipper. “Manatees.”

Dipper and Mabel glanced at each other, an unspoken thought passing between them. Before they were able to act on it, however, Mermando had turned and swam into the depths, beckoning his guests into one of the branching tunnels. 

As the humans settled onto the floor of the central shaft, they looked up at the roof above them—even to the advanced technology of the masks, it was completely invisible. Glancing up at their HUDs, they could see that they were now easily more than a thousand feet underwater. 

The pressure at this depth was immense—the readout showed almost 550 pounds per square inch. At the surface of the water, that number had scarcely been in the thirties. However, the feeling was almost imperceptible as the suits automatically compensated for it—the only sign of the change was that the suits felt slightly puffier. 

“This way!” Mermando beckoned, a smile on his face as he gestured towards a downwards sloping tunnel. Since reaching the surface of the water and greeting the _Stan o’ War II,_ he had scarcely left Mabel’s side. Now, however, he willingly left her behind as he led the way to his city. 

Pacifica fell into silent step behind Mabel as they advanced towards the tunnel. They could no longer fall directly into it, so they instead took massive bounding leaps into the water—almost as though they were on the moon. 

Hopping from rock to rock, the teenagers followed Mermando deeper and deeper underwater. Steadily, the pressure and depth readings ticked up, and the tunnel grew narrower and narrower as they approached the bottom. If Mermando had not been leading them, and if there wasn’t a group of tiburónes watching them from behind, they would have almost certainly all had panic attacks. 

“Hey, Mermando,” Dipper asked as they reached another junction. “Where do all these other tunnels lead?” At the main junctions, there were other large pathways that headed off into the darkness—they seemed to twist and turn, and didn’t have the luminescent glow of the main causeway. Even between the junctions, however, there were branching caverns that were more than large enough for a person to pass through. 

“Mostly nowhere,” Mermando answered before turning left. “We’ve mapped them extensively. A lot of them end in smaller caverns, or get too narrow for us to pass through. A few lead deeper into the seabed.” 

“If you’ve mapped them, then how do you not know where the vampires are coming from?” Dipper followed up, moving more quickly to catch up to the merman. “It seems like it should be pretty easy to track them down.” 

“I thought that too,” Mermando answered, turning right one more time. The tunnel that they now entered was different from the previous ones. The rock here was decorated with carvings of mermen and sea animals, and the circular walls slowly became more angular and regular, morphing into a hallway that slanted upwards. “But we haven’t been able to find them yet. It seems like they crawl out of a different tunnel every time. If we post guards in one, they just come through another.” 

“How do you keep them from getting into the city, then?” Dipper asked, looking behind himself to confirm that Sam, Mabel, and Pacifica were still there. Sam and Pacifica were walking behind him, while Mabel had let some ballast out of her wrists and was swimming in the water next to them. 

“With this,” Mermando replied, gesturing forward towards the end of the hallway. Stretched over the end of it was a fine net of seaweed, woven like a protective mesh over the pathway. Peering through the gaps in the gently wavering weeds, they could see a massive glowing room in the distance. 

Mermando drew to a halt in front of the net, and held his arms up to tell the others to stop. 

“Whatever you do, don’t touch this. If you mess with it, it will release toxic chemicals that would eat through your masks in an instant,” Mermando cautioned. 

“Duly noted,” Dipper responded, taking a quick step back. He hadn’t been planning on touching it, but he was the closest to it, and didn’t want to accidentally stumble. “But how do you get through?”

“You have to be let in,” Mermando sighed. “Before the attacks, my city was free to visit for all. Now, however, we have these nets and my tiburónes posted at every entrance. And it’s still not completely effective.” He then let loose with a series of chattering clicks, prompting movement on the other side of the net.

Moving quickly, two armored soldiers approached the net from the side of the city and peered through the gaps. Upon seeing Mermando, they hastily stepped back and grabbed ahold of two long sticks with tips covered in green goo. 

The seaweed that was growing to make the net was planted in two small urns nestled in small alcoves in the side of the hallway. It was suspended in the water by small wooden latches that kept it in the proper configuration. 

Slowly, the tiburónes placed the goop covered sticks at the base of the plants and stroked upwards, pulling the fibers of the seaweed loose from their anchors. The mesh net before them was slowly pulled back, and the path forward exposed. 

“Gracias,” Mermando thanked the soldiers before turning and gesturing the others forward.

Moving carefully, the teenagers stepped through the exposed hole in the center of the still-moving mass of plants, careful not to contact it. Once on the other side, they looked forward earnestly towards the end of the hallway. The floor rested at an upwards angle, preventing them from seeing out into the cavern beyond. However, even from here, they could see a soft glow coming from ahead. 

“Come!” Mermando waved forwards eagerly. Mabel grabbed ahold of Dipper and Sam’s shoulders for stability as she floated through the water. Pacifica clung to Dipper’s hand as they walked the final steps, finally peeking out above the edge and gazing upon the city of the merman prince. “Welcome,” he beamed proudly, “to the city of El Pescadorado.” 

“Wow…” Mabel mumbled breathlessly as she looked down at the city. Dipper and Pacifica’s eyes grew wide, and even Sam couldn’t keep an impressed expression of shock from his face. They could see the sight before them perfectly, lit as it was by thick seams of phosphorescent rock and glowing algae lacing throughout the walls of the cavern. From distant, hidden places within the cave rang out shouts and sounds that seemed neither human nor animal. 

The city sprawled out before them like any normal city would on earth—a complex maze of buildings and alleyways, populated with street markets, stores, and houses. Most of the buildings were only a few stories tall, but there were several that towered over the city like skyscrapers—ornate constructions of stone and coral seemingly carved from the earth itself. 

What was interesting, however, was that the buildings didn’t seem to be limited by gravity. They crawled from the walls and fell from the ceiling, supported by pillars of precise masonry and cables woven from metal and plants. Since merfolk could swim anywhere, they could attend a barbershop on the ceiling of the cavern just as easily as they could one on the ground. Indeed, there were many spaces that seemed to have been carved into the walls of the cavern themselves. 

The only place with no buildings was the precise center of the cavern, which was instead a large open area filled with a swirling, shimmering ball of fish and merfolk as they went about their business, going from one place to another and meeting in the middle. It was, essentially, a massive three-dimensional roundabout. 

In the distance, abutting the far wall, was the largest building of them all—halfway carved into the wall, and halfway built out from it. A large plaza stood before it, holding the wreck of an old Spanish galleon. Leading away from the ship and up towards the building was an ornate grand staircase that completely eclipsed the one in the Northwest Manor. From the imposing building rose towers topped with gemstone studded pyramids, glistening in the natural light of the cavern. Such a building could only be a palace. 

“Yeah…” Dipper echoed. “Wow.” 

“It’s not much,” Mermando laughed in false humility, “but it’s home. Let me show you to your rooms.” Turning, he gently took Mabel’s hand and led her out into the open water at the center of the city. Dipper, Pacifica, and Sam let some of the ballast out of their suits, allowing them to neutrally float in the water.

They kicked off of the slanted floor of the hallway and into the vaulted space before them, flying over the city and towards the swirling roundabout in the center. 

All of the humans were constantly spinning as they swam, trying to take in as much of the city as they possibly could. Peering down into the gaps between buildings, they could see merfolk going about their daily business with a casual indifference—this was just home to them, living in a city of thousands upon thousands of people, completely hidden from the surface world. 

At several points along the expansive outer wall of the city, there were tunnels similar to the one that they had passed through on their way here. Each of the dark portals was covered with a similar net of toxic seaweed, and protected by at least two guards. 

As the approached the whirlpool at the heart of the city, however, they started to slow down. Now that they were closer, they could see individual merfolk packed almost as tightly as sardines, their bodies and tails in a perfectly coordinated dance of wavering movement. Some were wearing armor and fulfilled the role of police, while others carried boxes and bags—they could have been mailmen, businesspeople, or students. 

“Uhh… Mermando,” Sam spoke up, worry evident in his voice. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to handle swimming in that thing. It’s like merging onto the interstate with a moped.” 

“And I am a limousine with a police escort,” Mermando laughed. “Being the prince has its advantages. We’ll be fine.” 

Instead of joining the clockwise motion of the roundabout once they reached it, Mermando continued straight into the heart of the maelstrom, heading directly for the palace. The swirling pathways of the other merfolk diverged around him as the citizens recognized who he was, allowing a clear passage forward. 

Moving quickly, Dipper, Pacifica, and Sam followed him through the gap, and found themselves in a strangely calm space of empty water at the heart of the storm. 

All around them, a glistening sphere of merfolk shimmered and swirled. It would have been beautiful, if every one of those people weren’t also staring directly at them. They were the first humans that had ever been given the honor of entering the city of El Pescadorado, and the fascinated gazes of the locals observed them from every angle. Within the hour, everyone would know of their presence. 

“Let’s just keep moving,” Dipper whispered as quietly as he could—loud enough to be transmitted over the headsets, but not loud enough to penetrate the water. He grabbed ahold of Pacifica’s hand as they swam—they were both equally uncomfortable. 

On the other side of the sphere, the merfolk parted just as they had before, allowing the prince and his guests passage through. They were much closer to the palace now, and could see it in exquisite detail. 

The walls were studded with shells, and the masonry was carved with images and reliefs in the same artistic style as that of the hallway they had passed through to reach the city. A calm yellow light shone out from the windows, a much warmer color than the greens and blues that illuminated the rest of the cavern. Mermando ushered them forward towards the grand entrance, slowly descending from the center of the cavern down towards the floor. 

“Do you think we can go out and explore the city?” Mabel chirped excitedly. “It looks so cool!” Pacifica turned to await Mermando’s response—she had been wondering the same thing, though she did want to get to their rooms and recalibrate before venturing back out into the mertropolis. 

“Once we get you settled,” Mermando responded. “We’ll put your bags down, and then head right back out.” 

“Um, Mermando,” Dipper began, swimming up next to the prince as they entered his palace. “Don’t you think that we should talk about the vampire problem before we go out for a night on the town?” 

“Don’t worry, Dipper,” Mermando replied with a smile. “This city is well-protected. Plus, you need to time to get adapted to this environment before we are able to mount an effective rescue operation.” 

Dipper fell back next to Pacifica, grumbling quietly to himself. Pacifica reached out and placed a hand on her boyfriend’s shoulder to console him—Mermando was right, of course. The vampires had been too much for them to handle aboard the _Stan o’ War II._ They would be much more difficult to deal with underwater. Fortunately, Dipper’s attention was soon drawn away by the sheer opulence of the room they had entered. 

The throne room in the palace looked directly out over the city, with the swirling roundabout in the center perfectly framed by lines of columns. The pillars were a rich and glistening blue, solid supports of lapis lazuli intricately carved with geometrical designs. Whereas most of the city seemed to be carved from the rock of the cavern around it, this part of the palace was clearly constructed with masonry. Multicolored bricks and tiles had been molded and stacked into place in an undertaking that must have taken years. 

The throne itself appeared to be made from the roots of a massive mangrove tree, studded with gemstones and lined with glistening silver. In a city where everything was stone and metal, wood was a powerful status symbol. Leading away from the foot of the throne to the main entrance was a strip of floor that was covered in a fine layer of shimmering gold. 

“This is your throne room?” Pacifica asked, exhaling sharply as her eyes drank in the opulence. “It kind of puts the Northwest Manor to shame.”

“The Southeast Estate, too,” Sam muttered. 

“Yeah,” Mermando replied, waving his hand dismissively. “It looks fancy, but it’s really not that hard to get expensive materials when you’re not fighting anyone for them. The chair’s not really comfortable.” 

“You could probably put a cushion on it,” Mabel suggested, practical and to the point. “I mean, it would be waterlogged, but it would probably still work.” 

“It’s not that,” Memando grimaced. “It’s all the spiky bits that come off of the roots. If I cushioned those, it would just look stupid, and my parents won’t let me carve them off. Usually, I just float above the chair.”

Mermando turned and swam up to the ceiling, heading for a small upside-down doorway in the corner of the throne room. The others eagerly followed him, happy to see more of the ornate palace. The tiburónes who had been following them broke off, satisfied that their prince would be safe now that he was within the confines of the city. 

“But, you’re my friends,” Mermando continued as the passageway he had led the humans into started to spiral upwards. “You don’t care about the fancy stuff. What matters now is that you have a place to stay.”

“I kind of care about the fancy stuff,” Pacifica whispered, causing Dipper to chuckle loudly. 

The tunnel they were swimming through suddenly leveled out and started to slope upwards more gently. Looking up, they could see the glistening of water that showed air above it—they had reached their quarters. Before breaching the surface, however, Mermando slowed down and turned to them. 

“Your rooms are just ahead,” he announced, pointing up at the surface. “We carved these caves out of the rock, and then brought air down here from the surface. In order to keep the pressure from building up, though, we had to use a sump system. The tunnel peeks above the water here, and then goes back down, and then comes back up. I’m going to jump over the land here, and meet you on the other side.”

With that, Mermando finally released Mabel’s hand. He briefly descended to give himself room to build up speed—then his tail pulsed mightily, propelling him up and out of the water. In the distance, a splash could be heard as he reentered the pool on the other side. 

“A p-trap,” Sam scoffed, shaking his head as he swam forwards, pulling himself onto the miniscule sandbar. “He said this place wasn’t a toilet.”

“Sam, it’s the only way to keep the pressure from crushing us,” Dipper replied, shaking his head as he followed the blonde boy, with Pacifica and Mabel close behind him. “It’s practical, for plumbing and housing.”

They had stepped onto a small patch of wet sand, surrounded now by air instead of ocean. On either side of the sand, the serene waters rippled slightly at their presence. Mermando, swimming about in the water on the other side, waved up at them. 

Moving in a single-file line, they reentered the water and swam thirty more feet before they began reascending. As they progressed, they noticed that the floor beneath them was slowly transforming from rough-hewn rock to pearlescent sand. 

“Hopefully these quarters will be up to your standards,” Mermando smiled as the humans progressed up the final feet of the slope and stepped out of the water. They found themselves on a small crescent moon-shaped beach of luxuriously soft white sand, surrounded by bright green algae and luminescent glowing seams of phosphorescent rock.

Pacifica glanced up at her HUD and saw that the air pressure in this room was normal. Reaching up to her mask, she undid the seal and quickly pulled the glass panel away from her face. She could feel the red indentations that the rubber had left behind in her skin. Around her, she could feel her wetsuit tightening again as it adjusted for the new pressure difference. 

She took a deep breath as she looked around the room—the air here smelled much the same as it had inside the mask, refreshed as it was by the same kind of oxygen producing algae. Dipper and Sam did the same beside her as they assessed their undersea home.

The sand underfoot was warm and soft, perfect for walking on barefoot—since the sand had been filtered and brought here manually, there were no stabbing shell shards mixed among the grains. A small alcove in the far wall led to what appeared to be a rough approximation of a bathroom. Piled up in one corner of the room were woven mats of seaweed. Pacifica approached them and gently ran her fingers across the crinkled leaves, surprised at how soft they were. There was no furniture to speak of, but they had more than enough here to survive.  
  
“I suppose this will do,” Pacifica pronounced, turning around to meet Mermando’s smile. He had dragged himself halfway onto the crescent beach, his tail drifting lazily in the water behind him. Beside him, his attendants were setting the waterproof bags onto the sand. 

“Good,” Mermando nodded. “Let us know if there’s anything you need. I’ll have a guard posted on the other end of the sump at all times. All you have to do to get their attention is kick the water.” 

“Sounds good,” Sam replied sharply, crouching down and opening one of the bags. He started rifling through it, trying to busy himself. 

“Thank you, Mermando,” Dipper answered more formally and politely. “We’re happy to be here. If you give us a little time to get settled in, we’ll be ready to work on rescuing Ford in a little bit.”

“I’ll have the war room prepared,” Mermando responded with a nod. “But for now, there are other matters to attend to.” 

Dipper and Pacifica glanced at each other as Mermando lifted himself onto the sand and pulled himself over to Mabel, who had yet to take off her mask. She had been entranced by the steady and quiet glow of the scene before her—if it were under better circumstances, such a beach would have been the perfect vacation spot. 

“Mabel,” Mermando began, casting his gaze towards the brunette. “Would you care to join me in exploring the city? I have a whole itinerary planned.” 

“What about the others?” Mabel asked, shaking her head as she returned to reality. She cast her arm towards Dipper, Pacifica, and Sam, who had already taken their helmets off. “They wanted to explore the city too.” 

“And they can,” Mermando replied with his gap-toothed smile. “They will be guarded by my tiburónes, and have everything they could possibly need brought directly to them. I want you and I to experience my home together.” 

Mabel looked up at her friends, who were frozen as they watched the scene before them. Dipper shrugged, while Pacifica’s shoulders remained squared. Sam was crouched over a bag with a thin-lipped expression, though his eyes were wide, and his fists were clenched. 

“Okay,” Mabel responded in an uncertain but hopeful tone, stepping towards the prince. She reached up to make sure that her helmet was still adjusted properly. Mermando, beaming, let out a celebratory chirp as he extended his hand towards her. 

Mabel interlaced her fingers with his, and vanished into the water.


	20. Salt

The texture of the flowers beneath Mabel’s fingers was oddly rough as she gently ran the petals between her thumb and forefinger. She had briefly taken off her glove in order to feel it, but found the water too cold and harsh to stand for long. Grumbling to herself, she quickly pulled it back on, flexing her fingers to ensure that the miniature paddles still worked properly. 

“My mother found that flower growing out of a crashed airplane in the Java Sea,” Mermando explained, gently wrapping his tail around Mabel’s ankles as she admired the plant. “She had it brought here a few years ago, and it’s been growing well ever since. Our gardeners really know how to feed a plant.” 

“It’s beautiful,” Mabel replied, gazing at it. The petal she had been holding on to slowly started to recede away from her, reacting to both her touch and the currents she had churned up. 

The plant in question looked more like a tree than a flower—there was a thick stalk, almost translucently green, that grew over eight feet up from the ground below. From the branches above, thin tendrils, curling like ribbons, drifted down to the water. The long white petals were almost as pure as snow, were it not for the blood red current that ran down the center of the leaves. 

“Everything here is beautiful,” Mabel continued, turning around and walking through the gardens of the royal palace, which sat on a large patio next to the main entrance. She had completely filled her wrists and ankles with ballast, allowing her to move about relatively normally, though she still floated as though she were on the moon. “I never imagined that underwater plants could be so colorful. I thought that it was just seaweed.”

“Well, there is a lot of seaweed,” Mermando laughed as he swam alongside her. “But we grow and harvest that outside the walls of the city. This garden is simply for foreign and exotic plants. Though, I think you’re the rarest flower that has ever found her way through our gates.”

“What’s this?” Mabel promptly asked, turning away from the merman beside her to conceal the blood rushing into her cheeks. She bent down towards a small bed of yellow flowers that almost looked as though they could have been from above water—the only difference was that they appeared to have miniscule rows of sharp teeth around the petals.

They watched together as a small, darting fish swam down into the yellow petals, seeking shelter. Almost instantly, it was swallowed up by one of the plants as its colorful fins curled upwards, trapping the fish and pulling it in.

“Neptunian minnow traps,” Mermando explained. “They’re not that uncommon in the coral beds around here, which explains why they’ve done so well. They’ve always been kind of scary to me, but they’re still very useful. They keep pests from getting too numerous, at least. That’s a good thing.”

“Huh?” Mabel asked, shaking her head to refocus her attention. She had completely missed everything that Mermando had just said.

Her mind hadn’t even been on the garish, if natural spectacle before her. Instead, she had been trying to calm herself as she puzzled through the problem of Mermando, and the challenges that he had brought up out of the blue.

Things had been going so well, and had seemed so simple. She was growing up, and was coming to terms with the idea that she was ready for a more serious relationship. There was even an ideal candidate nearby—tall, smart, handsome, rich, blonde, and possessing an immense love for turtles, dogs, and pigs.

Mermando changed all that. When he came bursting out of the water next to the _Stan o’ War II,_ Mabel had felt all of her childhood love bubbling back up within her heart—and now that she was older, those feelings took on an even more impactful and relevant role in her life. The fact that Mermando was now the ruler of a city in his own right, and that he had grown up just as she had, didn’t help.

When Mermando had kissed her on the deck of the ship, in front of everyone, she had felt the overwhelming urge to slap him. They hadn’t seen each other for over three years, and his first thought was that it was acceptable to kiss her.

But at the same time, she had enjoyed it. It was bold, romantic, soft, and warm. The inclusion of tongue had caused her momentary panic, making her freeze up at the taste of his salt-tinged lips. However, given a moment to process it, she would readily admit that the kiss was far better than the one they had shared when they were younger.

Mermando was someone she knew, a safe entity, and even better now than he had been before. Sam, as attractive he was, was still an unknown. And the merman she knew was preferable to the man she didn’t.

“I said that it’s good the minnow traps keep the pests under control,” Mermando repeated, gently hovering over the flower bed. As he moved, the faces of the flowers seemed to swivel slightly atop their stems, following him in anticipation of a new meal, though he was far too big for them to eat. “We don’t have… what do you call them? Bez?”

“Bees,” Mabel corrected with a grin. As far as insects went, the black and yellow bumbling balls of fuzz were her favorite.

“Bees!” Mermando echoed, raising his hand to Mabel in thanks. “We don’t have those. So there’s no risk of them getting caught in the minnow traps.”

“I’m happy the bees are safe,” Mabel replied, lightly hopping into the water and swimming next to Mermando. “I’m a little disappointed that I don’t get to see any sea bees, but it’d be weird if everything down here was exactly the same as it was on land.”

“Tell you what,” Mermando smirked, offering Mabel his hand again. She took it more readily this time, allowing him to pull her along through the palace grounds. “We may not have sea bees, but we do have something else that I bet you’ll like.”

“Dolphins?” Mabel chirped eagerly as they weaved between the different flower plots, quickly coursing over to the edge of the royal gardens. Without pausing, they leapt over the edge of the patio that housed the plants and dove down, descending thirty feet down to a large open tract of sea grass and rippling kelp.

The field was filled with tiburónes, all of whom were wearing armor and bore either tridents, spears, or short swords. There were no shields, as that would have interfered with their movement. They swam about the field in formation, occasionally breaking into lines or arranging into a V-shape like birds for increased speed.

Each regiment was led by an older merman, who was wearing a hat. The senior officers, in addition to their headgear, also bore weapons entirely unlike those of their subordinates, instead of being made of metal, their spears were tipped with what appeared to be glimmering gemstones.

“Not dolphins, unfortunately,” Mermando responded, his voice halfway between cheerfulness and a frown—he knew that Mabel would still be pleased about what she was about to see, but he was disappointed that he wasn’t able to show her the dolphins she wanted. “When we’re this far underwater, it’s tough for mammals to live. The dolphins up top are our friends, but we have something different down here.”

The field upon which the soldiers were drilling abutted the natural cavern wall, which loomed overhead, the concave nature of it making it appear as though it were about to fall over. Within the wall was a large door, roughly the size of a two story building. While the entire door could be opened when it needed to be, only a small panel within the door currently allowed passage in and out.

“Why does the door need to be that big?” Mabel asked as Mermando took her by the hand and ascended twenty feet up to the portal, through which a steady stream of merfolk flowed. “Do you guys have a kraken down here?”

“Not here,” Mermando chuckled. “It is real, though—it just doesn’t live here in the Atlantic. It’s more of an Indian or Pacific creature. Less prying eyes.”

“Aww,” Mabel mumbled. “A big octopus would have been cool.” Whatever was inside, however, was evidently not so dangerous that they couldn’t leave a person-sized door open at all times.

“It is cool,” Mermando continued as they both slipped through the small panel and into a long, dark, spacious room. “But this is cool too.” With that, he took a deep breath and let loose with a shattering, high-pitched cry that echoed throughout the water. Mabel instinctively covered her ears, only to realize that it wouldn’t do any good—she couldn’t reach within her helmet, after all.

As Mabel recovered from wincing at the sound, she took a better look around her surroundings as the glass in the front of her helmet adjusted for the darkness within the special room. She and Mermando were standing on a platform of stone and sand lined with stalls carved into the walls. At her feet, the platform suddenly dropped off into dark and turbulent water that was flowing quickly from right to left. At the bottom of the black water, she could barely see the dim luminescent glow of yellow algae, and massive, lithe shapes writhing through the current.

She and Mermando were not the only ones in the room—there were at least twenty other mermen lining the walls, tucked within the stalls. They had rough, metallic brushes and files in their hands, and were scraping loose scales from the bodies of the beasts that stood beside them.

“Are those…” Mabel began tentatively, before a flash of pale orange and dull gray appeared before her eyes, causing her to flail backwards in a panic “SHARKS!!?”

The paddles on her gloves and flippers activated immediately as she backpedaled, trying to put as much distance between herself and the massive tiger shark as possible. It has leapt out of the black current in an instant, moving more quickly than she had imagined something so large could.

After a moment, however, she realized that the shark had stopped pursuing her, if it had ever been at all. Instead, its nose was gently nestled in Mermando’s arms, eyes rolled back as the merman ran his fingers over the fish’s snout. Briefly, Mermando’s hair flared up, almost as though jolted by static electricity. The massive body of the shark gently wavered in the current, fins and tail making minute adjustments to keep its bulk stable and avoid injuring the prince.

Slowly, Mabel got back to her feet, breathing slowly as the panicked spines on her clothing began to calm down. The other mermen in the room, who were grooming their own sharks, had been staring at her as her scream penetrated the water. After a few more moments of stoic observation, they went back to their tasks.

“Come on, Mabel,” Mermando chuckled as he scratched under the shark’s chin, causing it to wriggle with pleasure. “Rory here wouldn’t hurt anyone. Well, no one that I didn’t tell him to.”

“You have a shark?” Mabel asked, the only question that was coming to the forefront of her mind, although the answer was obvious. She fumbled for anything else to comment on, but drew a blank. As much as she liked the name Rory, especially for a carnivore, it couldn’t quite top the prospect of a dog named Cornbread. She was grateful when Mermando continued talking.

“All the soldiers do,” the prince replied, stepping back from the shark and allowing the animal to gently swim through the water around him, sniffing around Mabel’s ankles before returning to his master’s side. “I’m the only one with a tiger shark, though. They’re the biggest species that it’s practical to keep as mounts, and I am the prince, after all.” Mabel jumped slightly as she felt the very tip of Rory’s tail brush up against her thigh, the power of the animal’s muscles barely constrained.

“You are the prince,” Mabel swallowed as Mermando gently swam up into the water above his mount and grabbed ahold of Rory’s fin. There was a small piercing in the fin that allowed for the insertion of a saddle bracket during battle, but for a leisurely swim, the prince could hold on well enough. Still, the prospect of riding a notoriously powerful shark that easily stretched to over seventeen feet long was frightening, even with Mermando around.

“Come on,” Mermando offered, extending his hand to Mabel yet again. “Let’s take a lap around the concourse. We won’t go far.” Mabel looked at his hand skeptically—the rough callouses on it spoke to his expertise and authority, but even that could be overthrown in an instant. There was a reason, after all, why cars had drivers and horses had riders. The same applied for sharks—except they had much sharper teeth.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Mabel asked, watching as Rory’s mouth gently flexed, sending water over his pulsating gills. She crossed her arms, tucking her hands away. Mermando held onto the shark’s dorsal fin and hovered in the water over it—even though the prince was only a few feet shorter than the tiger shark, the disparity in their raw strength was obvious. It was clear why the merfolk would use sharks for war or transportation.

“We haven’t had an accident in years,” Mermando answered in a soothing tone. “The actual training of the sharks takes place well outside of the city. Only the best make it this close to Pescadorado, and only the best of those are chosen for our soldiers. And only the best of those are chosen for royalty. And for you.”

Mabel uncrossed her arms as she felt a blush rising up into her cheeks. She was grateful that the water around her held a slight chill, or she would have turned beet red. She was still terrified, but the confidence with which Mermando spoke, along with how fantastic he looked riding a shark, was enough to win her over.

However, in ascending to the back of the shark, she didn’t take Mermando’s hand. Instead, she lightly hopped into the water and swam up behind the prince, wrapping her arms around her chest and anchoring herself to his back. Her helmeted head peeked up over his shoulder—their hair drifted together in the water, Mermando’s unbound, while Mabel’s was cased in a tight ponytail.

“Hold on!” Mermando instructed her as he gently squeezed Rory’s dorsal fin. Mabel closed her eyes in anticipation.

Instantly, the massive tiger shark writhed and darted forward, diving back down into the black current that it had just emerged from. Mabel felt her grip slipping, but then squeezed tightly and felt herself anchor to the prince’s torso.

Soon, the motion around them calmed, and Mabel only felt the quick slip of the water around her as they swam through the current. Tentatively, she opened her eyes.

Mabel gasped as she looked around her, only now realizing that the current they had just dived into was filled with hundreds and hundreds of other sharks. She wrapped her arms even more tightly around Mermando’s chest as her eyes flashed around the tunnel.

Rory did appear to be the only tiger shark, but there were plenty of other species swimming along the concourse. By far, the most plentiful kind of shark were blacktip reef sharks, which would swim alongside Rory, curiously eyeing his passengers before drifting back away towards the sides of the tunnel.

The sandy bottom of the tunnel, lined with yellow bioluminescent algae, was mostly populated with nurse sharks. They were substantially larger than the blacktips, but moved much more slowly. They didn’t seem suited for any kind of combat at all—they were most likely for transportation.

Other than Rory, the most dominating sharks were short and stout, with square noses and black eyes. The bull sharks were clearly intended for war, and hugged the edges of the concourse. Both the blacktips and the nurse sharks gave them a wide berth. Other than Rory, they were the apex predators among the shark herd.

Of course, there didn’t appear to be much cannibalism within the ranks of the sharks. There were large amounts of smaller fish that also swam alongside the larger animals, and they were occasionally unlucky enough to find themselves trapped between the beasts’ jaws.

“Uh, Mabel,” Mermando grimaced as he gently adjusted Rory’s trajectory. “Could you loosen your grip, please?”

“Oh, sorry!” Mabel yelped in a panic as she realized how she had been able to hold on so tightly to his chest—the spines on her gloves had extended outwards, piercing his skin and anchoring her in place. With a quick shake, she withdrew the gloves, allowing miniscule spurts of green blood to leech out into the water. “Do we need to be worried about that?” Mabel knew that sharks reacted to blood, but none of the mounts around them seemed to become any more aggressive.

“No,” Mermando laughed as they continued around the turning tunnel. The entire concourse was a simple circle that ran back around to the grooming station in Pescadorado, allowing the sharks to constantly swim for activity and exercise. “These sharks have been desensitized to merman blood. And we merfolk heal extraordinarily quickly.” Indeed, it seemed that most of the pinprick holes had already sealed up.

“Good,” replied Mabel, before pulling herself even more closely against Mermando’s back. She took special care to keep her gloves from stabbing him, but she also didn’t want to risk slipping off into the current. He had said that the sharks had been desensitized to merfolk blood, not necessarily human blood. Besides, feeling the rippling of his muscles through the front of her wetsuit was not an entirely unpleasant sensation.

Suddenly, without warning, Mermando quickly turned his head to the side and pressed his lips against the cheek of Mabel’s mask. Mabel felt herself blush at the sentiment—though he was unable to kiss her cheek, it was still an impulsive and honest action. She knew what he had meant by it. Some part of her was grateful for the barrier of the mask, but even more of her wished that it wasn’t there.

The only downside was the greasy imprint of Mermando’s mouth on the glass of the helmet—subtly, Mabel reached up and used the prince’s own hair to wipe it away and restore her full field of view. If Mermando noticed, he chose not to comment on it.

As they progressed around the tunnel, they slowly started to drift towards the interior wall. Strangely, most of the other sharks swam to the outer edge. Mabel wondered what could possibly be causing the disparity, until they rounded another bend and the reason became immediately evident.

In the wall of the tunnel was a massive hole that allowed access to the open ocean outside. There was a stout metal gate across it that could be opened when needed, but was currently closed—the mesh was tight enough to prevent both sharks and vampires from getting through, though fish could still make the journey.

However, the real attraction at the entrance to the outside was the massive pile of flesh, bones, and blubber that sat on the floor of the tunnel, strands of meat and organs drifting in the current as the sharks slowly devoured the mass. Some of the sharks seemed to only take a bite every lap or so, while some ate until they were satiated, and then continued on their way.

The actual pile of meat appeared to be an amalgam of many different animals—there were several spinal columns and rib cages that could only have belonged to large whales, while the bottom of the tunnel floor was carpeted with mollusk husks, turtle shells, and smaller, more gracefully curving bones.

Mabel felt bile rise into her throat as Mermando squeezed Rory’s fin and they gained speed, quickly racing away from the feeding frenzy and back into the calm waters of the current, now heading back to the city.

Until seeing that, Mabel had almost been able to forget the reality of where she was. It was a fantastical and amazing underwater city, populated by fish and merfolk. But, in a world where sharks were used as steeds, they had to be fed, and that was a foul and disgusting proposition. The reality of life down here suddenly felt viscerally more unpleasant than she had hoped. She was only grateful that smells were unable to penetrate the glass and algae of her mask.

“Sorry about that,” Mermando grimaced, his own nose crinkled up in revulsion. He didn’t have the benefit of a helmet to protect him from the viscera in the water. “That was a fresh delivery. I thought that was scheduled for tomorrow.”

“Is it usually better when its older?” Mabel replied, swallowing in an effort to tamp down her churning stomach. “I’d think that would make it worse.”

“Sharks don’t need to be fed that often,” Mermando replied as the grooming station came into view in the distance. The prince gently steered Rory towards it, ready to dock and dismount. Inwardly, Mermando was kicking himself for showing Mabel the unpleasant side of the concourse. He was so ecstatic to have a chance to spend time with her again that he didn’t want anything to ruin her experience. “Usually, they’ll take care of whatever we give them within a few days, and then it’ll just be bones until the next feeding.”

“Waddles does the same thing,” Mabel laughed in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Of course, he eats much more often, and it’s not seafood, but he still doesn’t leave anything behind.”

“Who’s Waddles?” Mermando asked, craning his neck backwards as Rory slid to a stop on the sandy platform where the other mermen were continuing to groom their mounts.

“He’s… never mind,” Mabel replied, her face falling as she realized that Mermando had no context for what a pig was. Unless he had seen one in Gravity Falls, she was going to be completely unable to explain to him exactly how adorable Waddles was.

Moving quickly, Mabel released Mermando’s torso and drifted down to the platform next to the tiger shark. Mermando released Rory’s dorsal fin and drifted down as well, scratching his mount on the head as he did so.

“Come on,” Mermando began, gesturing towards the shark’s head and glossing over Mabel’s reticence to discuss Waddles. “Give Rory a scratch. He likes it.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Mabel asked as she stepped forward, extending her hand towards the animal’s snout. The black eyes of the beast rolled back in its head as Mabel approached.

“It’s fine,” the prince replied with a smile. “Just make sure to keep the spines down.”

Slowly, Mabel’s outstretched hand made contact with the scales of the shark. She took special care to keep her hands away from Rory’s mouth, but was unable to keep a thrilled smile from dancing across her face as she ran her fingers back and forth, feeling the texture of the animal go from smooth, to rough, and smooth again.

“That’s cool,” Mabel acknowledged as she withdrew her hand, not wanting to overstay her welcome. Despite Mermando’s assurances, she was not nearly as comfortable with the sharks as he was. The prince, recognizing that, ran his hand completely down Rory’s side before patting him on the tail and giving him permission to leave.

They watched together as Rory turned and disappeared back into the current. Somehow, Mabel knew that he was going to head immediately for the feeding pile on the other side of the concourse. Though the sight of the bones and blubber had been revolting, her own stomach grumbled in sympathy.

“I know the prospect of eating after seeing the shark feeding grounds may not be the most appetizing thing in the world,” Mermando chuckled as he and Mabel swam up to the small panel in the main door and descended back down to the tiburón drilling grounds. “But, I’m hungry as well. I know a good restaurant up top where we can get dinner, if you would like.”

“I’m starving,” Mabel confirmed as she looked out at the city. It seemed as though the luminescent glow that had once filled the cavern was dimming as night fell, though the shimmering roundabout of merfolk in the center glistened as brightly as ever. “But I have to wear this mask to breathe. How exactly am I going to eat?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Mermando smiled as he extended his arm. Mabel glanced down at his hand briefly, and then reached out to meet it. This time, she took care to keep their fingers from interlacing. “A lot of our fanciest restaurants here have air bubbles within them, supported by the same kind of algae that’s in your mask. We’re capable of eating food underwater, of course… but it just tastes better in the air.”

Mabel yelped in surprise as Mermando quickly turned, lifting her off of the ground and pulling her onto his back. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, and her legs around his waist, almost as though she were riding piggyback. As soon as she was adjusted, Mermando took off swimming directly upwards.

Mabel watched as the depth reading on the interior of her mask decreased as they ascended towards the top of the cavern. Mabel quickly discharged the ballast in her gloves in case she needed to take off and swim on her own. As much as she trusted Mermando, her heart was pulsing in her temples as they journeyed to the restaurant.

Inside, she was a bundle of conflict and worry. Seeing Mermando had been a shock, but it had instantly caused all of the emotions she had felt her first summer in Gravity Falls to come surging back into her chest. Ever since they had descended, she had been trying to keep a healthy distance from Mermando, but nothing seemed to have worked—he was bold and charming, and simply being near him was like being sucked into a whirlpool. The fact that the water around her was cool was the only thing that was keeping her from sweating profusely.

Mabel winced as they approached the roof of the cavern, seeming to be traveling far too fast to slow down in time to avoid ramming into it. At the last moment, however, Mermando turned on a dime and began to swim horizontally beneath the roof.

The brunette looked up, down, and all around as they passed through the buildings that hung upside down from the cavern ceiling. Beneath them, the yawning maw of the open water made her feel as though she was standing on the wing of an airplane, and that jumping would be disastrous. Her heart pulsed with worry, though her brain knew that she would simply float down slowly.

The oddest thing in this part of the city was the orientation at which the merfolk were swimming. The buildings, which rarely exceeded three stories, were suspended from the roof by thick metal cables. All of the furniture within them seemed to be oriented correctly, with gravity pulling them down. On the streets, however, the mermen were just as likely to be swimming upside down as they were right side up.

“Mermando,” Mabel asked as they turned onto a side street and began to ascend once again, heading for an arched door through which a calm yellow light glowed. “Why are some of these guys swimming upside down? All of the blood would go to my head.”

“That’s because you only have one human heart,” Mermando laughed. “My people have seventeen hearts. And a big part of that is that it allows us to swim at any angle without getting lightheaded! It’s truly marvelous.” As he spoke, he spun slowly, allowing Mabel to get a better look at the buildings around them.

This entire portion of the city appeared dedicated to restaurants, with many tables packed onto balconies overlooking the open water and swirling sphere of merfolk below. The architecture was all subtly, yet distinctly different than that on land. Everything seemed larger, and more flowing to allow for the long and curving tails of the residents to move about easily, while still possessing a blocky quality that allowed for the construction to stand up to the pressures of both the water around it, and its own suspension from the ceiling.

“Marvelous…” Mabel replied quietly, before gripping more tightly around Mermando’s neck as he accelerated over the last few feet and surged through the door to the restaurant in front of them in a storm of bubbles.

“Ah!” the maître d’ exclaimed in surprise at the sudden appearance of the prince, and the guest clinging to him. “Prince Mermando! I was unaware that you were coming.”

“So was I,” Mermando laughed boisterously. “But I believe that my family has a permanent reservation here, so we should be fine.”

“Of course, sir,” the merman replied, bowing low as he turned and swam off into the bowels of the restaurant, going to arrange their table. As he receded, Mabel looked at his back—a black bow tie was lashed loosely around his neck, while the white shirt he wore seemed to fit him more properly than the clothes that many other citizens of the city wore. The maître d’s tail was covered in black scales—for a brief moment, Mabel absentmindedly wondered if the color of a merman’s tail related to their profession.

“Will this be okay?” Mermando asked as Mabel released his neck and settled slowly to the floor.

“I hope so,” Mabel answered, reaching back and pulling her hair back in an attempt to calm the spiky sphere that extended around her head—even if she hadn’t just been carried up to the restaurant district of the city, simply being in the water caused her hair to go haywire. She wished she had borrowed a hair tie from Pacifica. “Then again, I’ve never been here before, so I’m going entirely off of your recommendation.”

“I…” Mermando began, before closing his mouth with a puzzled expression. “I suppose you’re right,” he finally continued, laughing as he did so. “Well, my recommendation is that this place is fantastic. If it’s where I’m taking you for your first taste of mer-food, then it’s of the highest quality.”

“I would expect nothing less,” Mabel responded, curtsying as a joke before the maître d’ returned. 

“Right this way,” he pronounced, gesturing towards the door they had just come in from with a bow. “I must apologize to you, miss. We don’t have accommodations for land dwellers, and the prince’s table is on the top floor. This may pose some challenges.”

“Challenges?” Mabel asked, turning to Mermando with a puzzled expression on her face. “I thought you said this place had air bubbles to eat in.”

“Of course we do!” the maître d’ responded, throwing a hand against his chest in offense. “This is a fine dining establishment! We wouldn’t be caught dead if our bubbles weren’t intact, secure, and freshly maintained with a wide variety of flowers and oxygenating algae. No, miss, I was referring to the lack of _stairs.”_

“Oh,” Mabel murmured to herself, looking around. Indeed, even though there were multiple levels in the restaurant, there didn’t seem to be any stairs allowing access from one floor to the other from within the building. It made sense—in a world where you could ascend the outside of the structure just as easily as walking through the front door, stairs were a waste of precious floor space.

“Don’t worry about that,” Mermando answered, flashing his royal signet ring. “I am more than able to take my guest to the upper floor.” He extended his hand to Mabel, offering her the opportunity to climb back onto his back for the next part of their journey.

“And I am more than able to swim up there myself,” Mabel fired back, her voice cold. The wrists and ankles of her suit were filled with air, allowing her to jump easily into the water and swim with a casual grace. “You just lead the way, and I’ll be right behind you.”

“Oh!” the maître d’ responded in shock, surprised to see her swim so easily in the open water. If he could tell she was being assisted by the technology in her gloves and flippers, he gave no sign. Mermando looked at Mabel in disappointment for a moment; before his expression was overtaken by pride at her ability to fend for herself. “In that case, follow me.”

With that, the maître d’ swam out of the front door and immediately ascended two floors of the same building, passing balconies loaded with other diners. Mermando allowed Mabel to pass in front of him, even though she was substantially slower than he was. Even though she was swimming as quickly as she possibly could, she wasn’t able to escape the penetrating glances of the other patrons who were enjoying their meals.

Once they reached the uppermost floor, Mabel turned and entered a forest of merfolk tails. She looked around the space, trying to get a sense of what she was seeing.

The top of the restaurant was pressed very nearly against the top of the cavern, which had several large, dome-shaped divots carved into the top of it. Beneath each of the air-filled domes was the stone bottom of a table, and the flowing tails of the elite mermen and women who were eating in the oxygen above.

Mabel carefully navigated her way through the maze as she was led to an empty table in the center of the room. The maître d’ gestured to it with another obsequious bow. Mabel responded with a similar gesture, her movements dripping with sarcasm, as she finally stood up and burst into the bubble.

Water dripped down the glass of her mask as she looked around the stone indentation. It was less than four feet high, and five feet in diameter, but had been intricately carved with simple geometric patterns. The water, rippling at the bottom of the air pocket, was covered in the same oxygen-generating algae that Stan and Dipper had placed into their masks, the green sheen only interrupted by a stone table that protruded an inch above the waterline. The bubble was lit by a series of small candles that were set into niches in the cavern wall—a warm, flickering yellow that contrasted with the bioluminescent illumination of the rest of the city. The fact that there were candles here showed exactly how luxurious of a restaurant it was.

Mabel reached up and undid the straps behind her helmet, breathing a sigh of relief as she felt clean air fill her lungs. She could breathe perfectly well with the mask, but it was still a pleasant change to not be entirely surrounded by water. She considered taking out her earpiece, but opted to leave it in.

“Will this table work?” Mermando asked as he emerged into the air pocket on the other side of the circular table. “I’m glad to see that you’re able to breathe here.” As he spoke, he swung his head back and forth, sending a spray of seawater around the bubble as he dried his hair. Mabel squinted her eyes as droplets rained on her face—the candles flickered under the shower, but soon flared back to life.

“So am I,” Mabel smiled as Mermando slowly slid from the other side of the bubble to sit next to Mabel—ninety degrees away, instead of one hundred and eighty. “I’m still confused about how you’re going to be cooking down here, without fire or anything. I mean, you have candles, but that’s not enough for an oven.”

Suddenly, Mabel drew up her legs with a yelp as she felt something rough scrape against her calves. She looked down in a panic, but was unable to see anything through the thick layer of algae that covered the waterline. There was the illusion of privacy, but she knew that other diners were mere feet away, protected within their own bubbles of stone and air. Beneath her, but beyond her sight, merfolk delivering drinks and food navigated a sea of tails and legs—as though waiters dashed between your ankles every time they had to service a table.

Mabel closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. The absurdity of the situation had just crashed down upon her, and she could feel a thin layer of sweat breaking out on her skin despite the chill of the water. She was in a strange, hostile environment away from Dipper, Pacifica, and Sam, surrounded by beautiful merfolk whose way of life she couldn’t comprehend. And, next to her, sat their prince, with whom she had once shared a childhood kiss—but that seemed a lifetime ago.

“Do not worry about cooking,” the maître d’ replied, clearly able to hear her as he emerged on the other side of the table bearing a small vase of green and white flowers, which he sat in the center of the table. A fragrant, strangely savory aroma filled the bubble. “We do not have fire, but we have adapted to using the thermal vents for cooking. We find that the chemicals coming up from underground add a certain punch to most foods.” It was unusual for the maître d’ to serve a table directly, but, as Mermando had said—being royalty has its perks.

“Is that safe?” Mabel asked, looking at Mermando with worry. “Aren’t some of those chemicals like… extremely toxic?”

“Fret not,” the maître d’ responded as he placed two sets of antique silverware on the table, wrapped in a soggy cloth napkin. “We have specialized systems of algae and bacteria that filter the dangerous materials out before it ever gets to our kitchen.

“Speaking of which, we have a wide selection of entrees available tonight,” the maître d’ continued. “Our premiere dish tonight is barbecued whale—fresh from a fall a few miles to the south—a young pilot, I believe, so it’s unbelievably tender. Alternatively, we have our traditional marlin steak—it’s impossible to go wrong with that. And, if you’re in the mood for something lighter, we have a lobster and shark egg frittata. Additionally, as always, we have our routine rotation of appetizers, including tuna rolls and crab puffs.”

“We’ll take whatever the chef recommends,” Mermando replied, not even giving Mabel a chance to decide for herself. On the one hand, she was grateful because she had no idea how to respond to the information she had just been given—she had no context for how those things would taste, or what the difference between one kind of fish and the other was. On the other, she would have at least liked to ask some more questions.

“The barbecued whale it is,” the maître d’ smiled. “Served with roasted cherry potatoes and a rich, shimmering soy-kelp sauce. It has my highest praise.” Mabel felt her stomach turn at the prospect of eating a whale—but, it didn’t seem like the merfolk had hunted it, and she was always open to trying new things. She would at least take a bite.

“Good, then,” Mabel immediately chimed in, not letting Mermando overwhelm her again. “And, could we get some of those tuna rolls too?”

“Of course, ma’am,” the maître d’ responded, before turning to nod at Mermando and sinking beneath the algae. Soon, the disturbance in the water he had created had faded into indiscernible ripples.

“I’m not a ma’am,” Mabel mumbled to herself, crossing her legs defensively. “I’m not going to be a ma’am until I’m… thirty, at least.”

“Oh, it’s not like that,” Mermando laughed, his gap-toothed smile flashing in the flickering candlelight. “They just mean it to be respectful. After all, you deserve respect. Especially when you’re with me.”

"I think I should be respected even if I wasn’t with you,” Mabel responded with a smile. She stretched her lips across her teeth artificially. She had no problem arguing with Mermando, but the public-privacy they currently had within their bubble was deeply unsettling. She knew that the other merfolk were probably easily able to hear her, and didn’t want to do anything to embarrass the prince in front of his people.

She felt her breath hitch and her heart leap into her throat as she got spontaneous flashbacks to her first year in Gravity Falls, when she had found herself in a very similar situation with a white-haired gremlin. At the time, she had relied on Dipper to be straightforward and break up with Gideon, but she had learned that there was no point in being circumspect about these things. There was no doubt in her mind that Dipper would also have gladly delivered the news that she wasn’t interested in the prince, but she respected Mermando too much for that—and, besides, she wasn’t entirely sure that she wasn’t interested.

“You would be respected anywhere and everywhere,” Mermando answered, his voice practically a whisper as his fingers gently traced the stone of the seat next to him. Mabel’s eyes flashed down, and immediately saw that he was arguing with himself over whether or not to take her hand. “Regardless of whether or not you were with me. But, I must confess that I would much prefer it if you were.” He briefly clenched his fist before returning to tapping the bench.

“You’re a good guy, Mermando,” Mabel replied, trying her best to stay calm. She and Dipper were as close as two people could be, and she was trying to tap into some of his maturity and serenity as she spoke. “And I love you. I loved you back then, and I love you now—but I’m not sure if it’s the love of a friend, or romantic.”

“Is there anything I could do to reassure you?” Mermando asked, lifting his hands and placing them palms up on the table. This way, the pressure was on Mabel to reach out and take them. She had taken his hand many times before, but this time, it felt distinctly different. “I know that the prospect of coming to live down here with me is probably frightening.” Mabel inhaled sharply through her teeth as the subtext was made explicit.

“Terrifying,” Mabel acknowledged, briefly pushing herself off of the bench to place her hands beneath her thighs, pinning them in place. They wouldn’t misbehave without her permission. “But, it’s not just the idea of coming to live down here—I couldn’t do it now, anyway—I have to finish school. Even coming down here eventually, though… I mean, you’re a merman, and I’m a human. It doesn’t seem like it would work.”

“I would do everything to make it work,” Mermando answered, his voice deep and resonant as he spoke with a confidence Mabel hadn’t seen before. He spoke not as a warrior or a friend, but as a prince, as a king. “I know how I feel about you Mabel—and I have no idea how it would work either, but I would be so happy to be able to find out.”

“What happened to the Queen of the Manatees?” Mabel blurted, voicing a concern that she had been keeping to herself ever since Mermando had kissed her on the deck of the _Stan o’ War II._ Shortly after she had helped him to escape from the Gravity Falls Public Pool, he had sent her a bottle letting her know that he was being married off to prevent an undersea civil war. “Weren’t you supposed to marry her? Years ago?” The question had been bubbling up inside her, and she couldn’t entertain the conversation with the prince any longer until she knew what had happened.

Mermando’s face immediately fell at the mention of his former betrothed. It had been obvious in the message he had sent that he was not in love with the manatee, and that he had no choice in the marriage. Yet, the Queen did not seem to be around the city of Pescadorado, so something had obviously happened.

“I had hoped to avoid discussing her,” Mermando grimaced, his teeth seeming to glimmer a bit more sharply as he considered his contempt. “She was technically a princess, anyway. Mabel, I never really loved her. The only reason my parents were able to pressure me into that was because I was young and naïve. I’m older now, and I know who I love, and who I want to be with. It’s not her. It’s you.”

“Yeah, well, if you’re still married, we can’t even consider going through with anything!” Mabel exclaimed, trying to strike a balance between being outraged and staying calm. “I don’t see a ring, but maybe that signet is a wedding band too!”

“I never married her!” Mermando responded, keeping his voice as level as he could in an attempt to soothe her. “Right before the wedding, her dad got hit by a boat propellor! Super sad, but it opened up a power vacuum that my family able to step into and avert the civil war. We made the princess into a regent, and I didn’t have to go through with it. If I had married her, I assure you that I wouldn’t even be having this conversation with you—I’m not trying to lead you on! Everything that I have said tonight, I have meant. I am not a merman lost in a pool anymore—I’m a prince. I’m Mermando, I know who I am, and I know how I feel about you.”

Mabel slumped back in her seat in disbelief. It seemed as though their food was taking an awfully long time to arrive.

Every concern she had had about Mermando had been wiped away. Deep within herself, she had been wishing that the Queen of the Manatees would provide a reason for her to walk away from Mermando—she wanted the decision to be easy, but it didn’t seem as though the universe would be granting her wish.

Sure, there were still questions about Mermando—how she could practically live underwater when she couldn’t even breathe or swim around without a suit, or how she and Mermando would ever be able to be together in the same space at the same time, much less in an intimate way. Quite literally, being in each other’s domain without protective armor would kill them.

Despite her worries, her feelings for Mermando were undeniably real. He still had his flowing hair, an impish smile, and a torso even more impressive than when she had seen him three years ago. Just as she had grown, so had he, and the emotions they felt were equally more potent and matured. His personality was still kind and gentle—anything that he had done to make Mabel feel uncomfortable up to now had been done out of flirtatious goodwill and a genuine interest in deepening their relationship. And, so far, Mabel had not told him no.

However, as much as she did love Mermando—and now she was even less sure if it was as a friend or romantically—she couldn’t deny the way that she still very clearly felt about Sam. Her feelings for him, his dog named Cornbread, and his love for Waddles were as strong as they had ever been. Mermando had never even seen Waddles.

Sam had his problems, just like Mermando—especially since they had descended underwater, he had been sulky and withdrawn, and his family was just as bad as Pacifica’s, if not more so. She had failed to adapt to the fancy environment in which he lived, but that had merely been her first attempt. She knew that Dipper had gotten better at managing the elite side of Pacifica’s life—and, if he could succeed, so could she.

Sam, though, was also a human. He and Mabel breathed the same air, ran on the same legs, listened to the same chirping insects, and looked at the same moon. The moments that Sam had stopped to look after Mabel when she hurt her hands or feet had been far more intimate than the kisses she had shared with Mermando. Pacifica hadn’t been perfect for Dipper, so it was unreasonable to expect Sam to automatically be perfect for her. Besides, Mabel knew that she had her own set of things she could improve on to become a better, more lovable person.

She felt tears brimming up in her eyes, and reached out for the napkin that her silverware was wrapped up in. She quickly jerked it open, sending the utensils rattling across the stone surface of the table before finally falling into the water with a plop. She buried her face in the napkin, only to realize that it was still wet as she took a deep breath and inhaled a wave of water. Choking back a cough and tears at the same time was too much, and she let out a rough, abrasive noise of panic and desperation.

This was exactly what she had been worried about, and what she had discussed with Dipper that night feeding turtles in the marsh. She loved both Sam and Mermando in a way that could easily become romantic, and she had no idea which she should choose—but, she knew that if she didn’t choose, she would lose both. And, regardless of who she did wind up opting for, her feelings for the other wouldn’t simply vanish. Mermando would still have his gap-toothed smile, and Sam would still have a beautiful singing voice that echoed over the ocean waves in a tone more dulcet and delicious than any siren’s.

Mabel had no idea what to do—but, at least there were only two options. They could be equally weighed and considered before she reached an ultimate decision. She knew that she needed to talk with both Dipper and Pacifica.

“I’m sorry,” Mabel apologized, placing the napkin onto the table and looking back up at Mermando. “I know this is a fancy place. I shouldn’t be acting like this.” Mermando’s expression was gentle and soft, reassuring her that what she was feeling was as precious to him as when she was happy and exuberant.

“Don’t worry,” Mermando replied, reaching out and taking Mabel’s hand in his. She didn’t push him away, and soon felt his tail gently swirling around her ankles below the waterline. The spikes on her gloves and flippers stayed flat. “I know we’ve talked about a lot tonight. And besides, you don’t have to make a decision right now. After all, before we did anything too major, we’d have to introduce you to my parents.”

She felt her heart leap into her throat, and her stomach sink to her feet at those words—somehow, the prospect of meeting his parents sounded even more daunting and meaningful than her own choice between Mermando and Sam. She knew that, if she met the prince’s parents, her decision would already be made.

Mabel opened her mouth to respond, but paused before a sound had passed her lips—she was still wearing her wire headset, and she had just heard a strange noise as it clicked over to a different channel. Then, with a desperate cry, Dipper’s voice wailed across the connection.

“HELP!”


	21. Pacing

An explosion of flavor coursed over Pacifica’s tongue as she bit into the small morsel on the plate in front of her. It consisted of a small sliver of tuna, which had been seasoned and packed with a grain that appeared similar to rice, though the flavor profile was rich and salty. A thin paper of supple seaweed held the ingredients together just like sushi. The melting flesh and running fat of the fish paired perfectly with the intricate flavors of the rice and the pleasantly chewy texture of the seaweed.

“Wow,” Pacifica smiled as she swallowed. “I must admit that Mermando knows how to treat his guests.” She leaned back, reclining into Dipper’s shoulder and looking up at him as she held up another piece of the roll for him to take a bite. She felt the gentle stubble on his chin scrape against her fingers. “I wish I knew how to cook like this.”

He chewed thoughtfully for a moment before quickly biting forward, taking the rest of the roll out of his girlfriend’s hand and scraping her skin with his teeth. She broke into a laugh, feigning disgust as she wiped her hand on the seaweed mat they were sitting on. Dipper smiled in response.

“You probably could cook like this,” he encouraged. “The real problem would be sourcing all of these undersea ingredients.”

The seaweed rolls were only one of many different dishes that were arrayed out on the sand before them. After Mermando had absconded with Mabel, Dipper had requested some snacks—and the palace staff had answered with pleasure.

Seaweed rolls, thin slices of smoked marlin, and small crabs that had been filled with a mixture of green cheese and their own meat had been quickly brought on ornate silver platters. Dipper and Pacifica had taken several of the dried seaweed mats and constructed a miniature loveseat on the crescent beach, where they now sat relaxing in each other’s arms.

“The weird thing is that there’s no bread,” Pacifica commented as she reached out for one of the miniature crabs. She briefly examined it, trying to figure out if she should eat the whole thing, or leave the shell intact. After experimentally stabbing her finger with the sharp edge of the shell, she decided to focus on the stuffing.

“That’s because they’re underwater,” Dipper chuckled as he skewered one of the marlin slices. Surprisingly, the outside of it was almost caramelized, and the sear on the meat was perfect. He was unsure how they generated heat down here, but they were clearly experts at using it. “It would just crumble and break apart. So they have to use seaweed instead.”

“At least it’s green,” Pacifica responded, grabbing ahold of a small fork and pulling out the stuffing on the inside of the crab. “Makes me feel healthier.” Turning the fork over, she placed it in her mouth before slowly pulling it out from in between her lips, savoring the unique flavors—the crabmeat was roasted and shredded, while the cheese was rich, and somehow even creamier than cream cheese. “Though the cheese is still a mystery to me.”

“It’s got to be whale cheese,” Dipper suggested as he bit into the marlin steak. “That or dolphin. That’s the only explanation for how they can have dairy down here.” Dipper’s nose crinkled in response to the flavors of the marlin—the inside of the fish was fine, but the outside had a strangely metallic tinge to it. A fancier person may have been able to tolerate it, but not Dipper.

“I would be very interested in seeing how they milk a whale,” Pacifica laughed. “They don’t strike me as the kinds of things that like to be milked.”

“Well, have you ever tried?” Dipper chuckled as he returned the remainder of the marlin to the plate, taking special care to conceal it underneath a leaf of seaweed. “Maybe they’re polite about it.”

“You’ve got me there,” Pacifica smirked as she reached for another of the seaweed rolls—as good as the crabs were, they were too rich to eat many of them in one sitting. “Then again, I haven’t spent that much time next to the ocean. Sam, have you ever milked a whale?”

She directed the question out to the room, where Sam was busy wearing a rut into the sand of the crescent beach.

Once Mabel had disappeared back into the water with Mermando, he had meticulously gone through the waterproof bags and set out their supplies. Folded piles of clothes had been placed on one of the mats, though no one had yet taken off their wetsuits. A selection of Ford’s waterproof equipment had been propped against the wall—there wasn’t that much of it.

Soon, however, Sam’s interior designing energies were expended, and he had started walking back and forth from the water, to the opposite rock wall, and back. It was a small distance, and he had already made the journey at least a hundred times. His bare feet were coated in sand crystals, though he had packed the beach beneath him into a hard furrow.

“Huh? What?” Sam asked in a panic, his head popping up and looking over at the relaxing couple. Compared to his current neuroticism, they were the image of relaxation. He hadn’t touched any of the food.

“Have you ever milked a whale?” Pacifica repeated the question, a sad smile on her face. Sam was worrying about Mabel, even if he wouldn’t directly admit it—Dipper was the only person he had confessed to. After all, he had no reason to be worried about her safety. Even to Pacifica, however, it was obvious, and her question was merely an attempt to refocus his attention.

“What?” Sam asked again, shaking his head and squinting his eyes. “Of course not. What kind of a question is that?”

“A fun one,” Dipper replied, cutting Pacifica off. “You should come over here and eat some. You’ll feel better if you do.”

“No, I’m fine,” Sam responded automatically, reaching the far wall of the cavern before turning around and resuming his pacing. “I ate before we came down.”

“Yeah, and we just swam almost two thousand feet down into a merfolk city where people like us have never before set foot,” Dipper fired back. “It’s been a stressful day. Eat.”

“I’m fine,” Sam answered sternly. “It’s not my stomach that’s bothering me.”

“Is it Mermando?” asked Dipper. “I get that.” Pacifica looked up at Dipper in confusion, but chose to hold her tongue—she really wanted to chime into the boys’ conversation, but she could tell that Sam didn’t want information about his feelings for Mabel leaking yet. She would keep his secret.

“You do?!” Sam responded, suddenly stopping his pacing. He turned and walked over to where Dipper and Pacifica were sitting, churning up a cloud of sand as he did so—Pacifica quickly snatched up the plate of seaweed wraps to protect them from the storm, while Dipper did the same with the crabs. The marlin steaks suffered the full brunt of his attack.

“Yeah,” Dipper confirmed as he picked up a crab and started to scrape the filling out with his tongue. Pacifica crinkled her nose and grimaced, but didn’t stop him. “Mermando’s a lot to get used to.”

“Then why’d you let Mabel go off with him?” Sam asked, crouching down on the seaweed mat Dipper and Pacifica were sharing.

“Because he’s not dangerous,” Dipper shrugged. “I may not like him that much, but he’s not going to hurt her. He likes her too much for that. And, if she wants to go hang out with him, who am I to stop her?”

“What do you mean by ‘likes her’?” Sam asked, energetically bouncing on his heels. “What exactly is their story?”

“Was it not obvious from their hot make-out session on the boat?” Pacifica asked as she polished off another seaweed roll. Her inner voice was telling her to put them aside, but she quickly convinced herself otherwise—after all, swimming was a taxing activity.

“I got the sense that Mabel wasn’t that into it,” Sam replied, his voice hopeful. “Which makes the fact that he kissed her out of the blue like that deeply creepy.”

“It’s not as creepy as you’d like, nor quite as normal as we’d hope,” Dipper answered, taking a deep breath before launching into an extremely abbreviated version of the tale. “Three years ago, Mermando was trapped in the Gravity Falls Public Pool. Mabel helped him to escape, and they kissed before he returned to the ocean. It was actually Mabel’s first kiss, so he matters a lot to her.”

“Hey,” Pacifica chastised through a mouthful of tuna and ocean rice, “you forgot the part where you kissed him too.”

“We don’t need to talk about that anymore,” Dipper replied with a stern smile and a twinkle in his eyes, pushing Pacifica over onto the sand. She held her seaweed roll up in the air to save it. “The point is, Sam, that you don’t need to worry about her. For any reason.”

“So they are a thing…” Sam swore to himself, hastily standing up and walking over to the line of Ford’s weapons on the opposite wall.

“I wouldn’t call them a thing,” Dipper hastily corrected. “I don’t think they ever were a thing, as a matter of fact. Things have changed a lot in the past three years, after all. I hated Pacifica back then.”

“And I hated you,” Pacifica replied, gently craning her neck to nuzzle up against Dipper’s chin. He gently ran his fingers through her hair. “After all, you did completely destroy my family’s legacy.”

“Your family did that all on their own,” Dipper scoffed. “All I did was reveal it.”

“Still, it was very rude,” Pacifica fired back, raising her nose in the air. Her snooty expression only lasted a couple of seconds before she felt Dipper tickling at her stomach, and she broke down laughing.

“A little bit of rudeness can be good sometimes,” Sam called out from across the room as he pulled on his gloves and flippers, which had been drying on a lip of stone that ran around the entire beach. Moving quickly, he picked up his mask and walked over to the water.

“Where exactly are you going?” Dipper asked as he helped to pull Pacifica back up into a sitting position. “I thought we were going to rest up here until we were ready to discuss the Ford rescue plan.”

“I’m as rested up as I need to be,” Sam responded, pulling his white wire headset and mask over his face. “I’m going to go out and explore the city.”

“Oh,” Dipper responded, looking down at Pacifica. “Would you care to join him?”

“Sure!” Pacifica chirped as she hopped to her feet, and then helped Dipper stand. “I was hoping to get a chance to see this place at ground level. Or… wall level, or ceiling level, or whatever it is.”

In reality, her motivations were twofold. She did legitimately want to explore the mysterious mertropolis with Dipper by her side, but this would also allow her to keep an eye on Sam to make sure he didn’t do anything too drastic. If they whispered, and stayed a healthy distance from the blonde boy, she and Dipper would be able to speak privately over their headsets.

“I’m going on ahead, then,” Sam announced as he stepped into the water. “I guess I’ll see you out there.” As Sam sank deeper and deeper into the water, he never jumped or slid down beneath the surface. Instead, he simply forced his way forward, compelling the water to move for him.

“Are you sure it’s okay to let him do this?” Pacifica whispered to Dipper as they pulled on their gloves and flippers.

“Oh, probably,” Dipper shrugged. “I mean, I don’t think he’s going to do anything dangerous. He’s a little jealous, is all.” Dipper picked up the two masks, and held one out for Pacifica. Before taking it, she reached behind her head and pulled her hair into a single long ponytail, using a black tie from her wrist to lash it into place.

“I guess I can’t talk about being jealous,” grimaced Pacifica as she took the mask from Dipper and slipped it over her face. She inhaled deeply, adjusting to the intense fishy scent again as she thought back to how she had reacted to the sight of Candy the previous Christmas. “It gets to us all. I just hope he’s able to grow past it.”

“I have hope for him,” Dipper confirmed with a smile as he stepped into the water with Pacifica beside him. Now that they were wearing the helmets, they were forced to whisper to prevent Sam from hearing them. The headsets, in their default configuration, sent out their signals to any headset within a certain distance. “This isn’t the best atmosphere for romance, and he’s moving on an extremely accelerated timeframe. Especially compared to you and I.”

“We could have accelerated our timeframe some,” Pacifica smirked, reaching down to pinch Dipper on the back of his leg. “The years we wasted get me melancholy sometimes. Think of all the things we could have been doing.”

“Think of all the things that kids shouldn’t be doing,” Dipper laughed pointedly. “It’s taken a while to get to here… but honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing.” As they talked, the couple advanced through the sump and down into the main body of the palace. The attendant who had been posted to keep track of them had left with Sam. As they progressed deeper underwater, their wetsuits began to puff up around them again to protect them from the pressure.

Once they had emerged into the throne room, they caught a glimpse of Sam swimming out towards the grand staircase that led down into the lower levels of the city. An armored guard bearing a trident was swimming along next to him, ready to defend him as an honored guest from any threats that the city or the creatures within it may pose.

“Are you ready to go?” came a voice from beside the two humans, causing them to start as they turned to see who was speaking. They quickly spotted a similar soldier with a trident lashed to her back, ready to serve as their escort. She was much smaller than the one guarding Sam, but no less intense, with a shimmering golden tail and short-cropped red hair.

“Oh, you scared us,” Pacifica laughed. The soldier’s face cracked a slight smile, though she tried her best to remain expressionless. “Yes, we’re good to go. You can go ahead to meet the others—we’ll be following right behind.”

“As you wish,” the tiburón nodded before turning towards the palace door. Even though she was swimming lazily, she still outstripped the progress of Dipper and Pacifica as they advanced towards Sam and the city.

Gazing out into the center of Pescadorado, the spherical roundabout glistened as vibrantly as ever. However, as night slowly began to fall two thousand feet above, the artificial illumination in the cavern started to dim. It would never go completely dark, but even the merfolk had day and night.

Somewhere within the city were Mabel and Mermando, off on their own mission of exploration and fun. Dipper didn’t know exactly what they were doing, but he was confident that what he had told Sam was correct—Mermando wouldn’t try anything inappropriate, and Mabel was more than capable of shutting him down if she needed to.

“So, it turns out you were right about Mabel and Sam,” Dipper whispered into his microphone as he swam with Pacifica down to the main street below. The central thoroughfare emerged from the steps of the palace and ran the length of the city, lined with market stalls and other businesses. Sprouting off of the central avenue were smaller pathways, slightly angled away from the palace—the layout of the city almost looked like a fish skeleton itself.

“About what particularly?” Pacifica scoffed quietly. “The fact that they both like each other, or the fact that they’re both too uncertain and nervous to admit it?”

“Both,” Dipper chuckled as they set foot on the main market street. The ballast on their ankles increased, allowing them to walk airily on the ground below, though they still moved with a certain floating quality. “When we were on the beach yesterday, Sam told me how he thought he was starting to get attached to her. Which means, if you were right about Mabel’s feelings, then there’s nothing stopping them but themselves.”

“Trust me,” Pacifica mumbled. “I’m not wrong. You know that as well as I do—you talked to her that night on the marsh.” As they started to walk, hand in hand down the market street, Pacifica felt an involuntary shiver pass through her body. Looking at the HUD in the top left of her mask, she could see that the water temperature had just plunged several degrees, though it soon began to rise again.

“You’re right,” Dipper admitted, shaking his head as he and his girlfriend began to peruse the market stalls. Ahead of them, Sam continued to swim forward, flanked by the tiburónes. All he wanted to do was find Mabel and Mermando, but the city was much too large for him to succeed—all he was doing was burning off some steam. “So, what are we going to do about it?”

“What do you mean?” Pacifica shrugged, struggling to keep her voice quiet. “I don’t think that we should be doing anything. All we need to do is give them the space to figure it out for themselves. If they both like each other, it’ll happen naturally.”

“Yeah, but we’re heading home right after the Fourth of July Party,” Dipper pointed out. “That gives them four days—and they’re going to be busy ones.”

“I don’t know what you think I’m going to do about it,” Pacifica shrugged, slightly offended. “Mabel’s the supposed expert in romance.”

“Shh!” Dipper quickly hissed into his microphone. “If we keep getting louder, Sam’s going to hear us.”

“Can you not change the settings on the headsets?” Pacifica replied, rolling her eyes. “If we’re going to be gossiping about our friends, I’d rather not run the risk of having them hear us.”

“Give me a second,” Dipper asked as they continued to walk down the market street. His eyes shot up to the top of his mask, and Pacifica could see that he was quickly glancing through a list of commands that were scrolling across the glass. “Besides,” he murmured as he searched, “Mabel’s completely out of her depth here. Literally and figuratively.”

“I think all they need is the opportunity,” Pacifica offered, as her eyes flashed farther down the street—one of the shops had caught her eye.

“Establish closed voice communication line,” Dipper commanded in as clear a voice as he could manage. “Pacifica.” As he spoke the final word, a series of clicks emanated from their headsets as the settings were changed.

“Is it better now?” Pacifica asked as she turned towards a nearby market stall, constructed of stone and coral. A colorful awning hung over the front, though there was no sun that it needed to shield the stand from. Arrayed on a low table were a myriad of colorful, elastic bands that seemed to be woven from some kind of fiber—not seaweed, but not normal hair or wool either.

“Let’s try it out,” Dipper chuckled, turning to face Sam, who had continued swimming with the tiburónes down the street. “Sam!” he called out loudly. “Stop whining and ask Mabel out already!”

Sam showed no reaction and, after a moment, Dipper swam over next to his girlfriend.

“I think we’re safe,” he announced, before looking down at Pacifica’s hands. “What are these?”

“We use those as hair ties!” smiled the mermaid behind the stone counter—she had been lurking in the back of her market stall as the teenagers and the soldiers had passed. It was only now that the humans were actively taking an interest in her that she emerged from the shadows. A loose canvas top flapped around her torso, while her tail was covered in scales of demure gray.

“I like them!” Pacifica smiled, reaching back around to her own hair and pulling the black hair tie that she had been using from her blonde locks. Her hair briefly fanned out behind her like a halo, before being reigned back in by her expert hands. “What are they made of?”

“It’s a fiber we harvest from jellyfish,” the mermaid blushed. Her shop being chosen by the overlanders was evidently a high honor. “Don’t worry! We get all the stingers out before we make anything out of them.”

“Good to know,” Pacifica replied. “What do you think, Dipper?” She spun around in the water, bouncing lightly on the stone cavern floor as her hair swirled around her. The band she had chosen was a navy blue, but was interlaced by a spiraling coil of dark green and a thin whirl of white.

“I like it,” Dipper pronounced after a moment of evaluation. “I’m not sure how it’ll react to the air once we go back up, but I think it’ll work for down here, in case we need to attend any fancy meetings.”

“We’ll take it,” Pacifica decided, turning back towards the mermaid working the stall before a panicked expression possessed her face. “Wait!” she exclaimed, turning towards Dipper. “We don’t have any money. Mermando didn’t give us any, and there aren’t ATMs down here!”

“Don’t worry about it,” the mermaid smiled, carefully avoiding the spikes on Pacifica’s gloves as she gracefully reached out to shake the blonde’s arm. “Anything for guests of the prince. After all, once word gets around that you picked my shop, I’m sure business will pick up considerably!”

“Oh!” Pacifica responded with a smile. “Thank you! I’ll be sure to mention you to Mermando.”

“The prince!” the mermaid squealed, bringing her hands up to cover her mouth. “Please!”

“No problem,” Pacifica answered, cocking her head to the side before turning around and continuing to head down the main market street. Dipper lingered a moment longer before he followed her—Sam hadn’t stopped, and was continuing to put distance between the two groups.

“She seemed… enthusiastic about Mermando,” Dipper offered as they walked together down the thoroughfare. Dipper glanced back to look at Pacifica’s hair tie—the dark colors popped against the pale background of her hair.

“Well, he is the prince,” Pacifica shrugged. “It makes sense that they’d like him. It seems like he’s done a good job of managing the city. Plus, the city’s under attack from outside vampires—people rally around their leaders at times like this.”

“I guess you’re right,” Dipper replied with a chuckle. “Since when do you study political science?”

“That’s not political,” Pacifica scoffed. “That’s just power. And I know more than a few things about how to use that.”

“In Gravity Falls, at least,” Dipper answered. “How does it feel to be down here? None of your traditional Northwest status matters underwater. It’s like you’re just a normal person. Or, as normal as you can be as a human in a merfolk’s world”

“I’m a normal person in Gravity Falls too, you know,” Pacifica pointed out, gently bumping into Dipper with her hips. “I thought you had realized that over the past three years.”

“Oh, I know that full well,” Dipper laughed, draping his arm over Pacifica’s shoulder and pulling her close to him. “It’s everyone else that doesn’t know it. Even after Weirdmageddon, you still get preferential treatment. But down here, no one cares. You’re just a random girl on the street.”

“Hmm…” Pacifica murmured as she looked around the market street, which was slowly being emptied as people returned to their homes for the night. It was true that a lot of the merfolk were looking at them, but that was simply because they were humans, and guests of the prince. They weren’t treating her with any other deference or respect.

“Get out of the way!” shouted a merman, who was barreling down the street in a storm of bubbles. Pacifica froze, gasping, before Dipper quickly grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the center of the road and closer to the buildings. Pacifica instinctively returned his grasp.

Both Dipper and Pacifica watched in astonishment as two massive tuna swam down the thoroughfare, harnessed to a buoyant raft made from woven seaweed. The cart was full of large, white vegetables that were still covered in the sand they had grown in. The merman who had shouted at them was guiding the tuna like horses, pulling on their harnesses to direct them to where they needed to go.

Soon, the cart had passed by and receded back towards the palace. Pacifica exhaled a breath that she didn’t know she had been holding, and released her grip on Dipper’s arm.

“See?” Dipper smiled as they resumed walking. “On land, there’s no chance that you could have gotten run over by fish. They would have swerved.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Pacifica admitted. “Since out-of-control fish are such a major problem on our roadways.” She smiled as she spoke, though she recognized that Dipper was right—down here, she could get a taste of how a lower-class person saw the world. That made it even more obvious to her how compelling status and power could be.

“Such a big problem!” Dipper laughed, before exhaling with a sigh. “That’s amazing. When we left on this trip for Charleston, I didn’t think I’d get to see an underwater city populated with merfolk, much less how they transport things around the streets. It makes me want to find out more. There are so many books to be written about this.”

“Don’t think that you’re about to move down here,” Pacifica chastised him. “I’m not about to let you go that easily, and I’m certainly not going to live here.”

“Trust me, I wasn’t planning on it,” Dipper nodded. “It’s not just that I wouldn’t be able to spend time with you; it’s that I think our lifestyles are… mutually incompatible, so to speak. Humans and merfolk have just adapted for different environments. Sure, they may vacation with each other from time to time, but cohabitation is out of the question.”

“For you, maybe,” Pacifica replied. “I don’t think Sam shares the same opinion.” As she spoke, Pacifica pointed ahead to where Sam was swimming with the tiburónes. They were approaching the end of the market street, and turned down into a smaller, less populated alleyway. Dipper and Pacifica picked up their pace to catch them, hopping over a shingle that had fallen from a nearby roof down to the road below.

“No,” Dipper answered with a shrug, “I think Sam thinks exactly the same thing as I do. He doesn’t want to stay down here for any longer than he absolutely has to.”

“You’re right,” Pacifica acknowledged, shaking her head. “Correction—I think Sam is worried that Mabel doesn’t share the same opinion. He’s worried that she thinks Mermando is a bigger catch than he is."

“Given that he’s a fish, I’m going to say yes,” Dipper fired back with a smile. Pacifica pinched his arm. “But I see what you’re saying. I remember how I felt when I first found out that you and Sam had been friends for so long—and you didn’t even have a romantic history like Mabel and Mermando.”

The couple had approached the alleyway that Sam and the tiburónes had turned down. However, before they turned and followed their friend, Dipper quickly came to a grinding halt. Pacifica, beside him, slowed down as well.

“Look at these!” Dipper enthused, turning to face the last stall before the alleyway. This shop wasn’t nearly as colorful as the one Pacifica had purchased her hair tie from, but it still glistened in the dimming lights of the city.

The bioluminescent shine of the walls reflected off the metal blades of the knives that hung from the front of the stall. The handles of the weapons were made of stone, finely carved and polished to provide a strong underwater grip. The blades themselves, however, were the true stars of the show—the metal was patterned with rippling currents of carbon, beaten into the steel by the forging process. The surface of the knives were covered in an intricate matrix of pale wavering lines, not unlike Damascus steel.

“You like that one, do you?” the proprietor of the shop asked, swimming forward from the back of the stall and pointing up at the knife Dipper had been looking at. He had been hidden in the shadows, much like the mermaid at the previous stall, but now Dipper and Pacifica were able to get a proper look at him.

His tail was multicolored and strangely stubby, interlacing stripes of blue and white on a field of dull orange-red. His hair was cropped short, and his left arm was almost completely missing.

Dipper slightly jumped back in shock at the sight—it wasn’t the amputation that bothered him, but the way the stump looked. Emerging from the wound, which must have been inflicted years ago, was a lump of new, pink flesh that was slowly elongating and contorting as it grew—almost as though the limb was regenerating itself.

“Oh?” the merman mumbled, realizing the focus of Dipper’s attention. “Don’t worry about that. I lost it to a shark a decade ago. Usually it only takes a few years to grow back, but it got infected. That slowed down the process.”

“Mermen can regrow limbs?” Pacifica mumbled to herself in astonishment. This had certainly never come up in conversation with Mermando before.

“Aye, we can,” the shop owner replied. Pacifica blinked, having forgotten that it was possible for the merfolk to hear her through the water. “Can’t you?”

“Uhh… no,” Dipper responded, quickly reaching up for the knife that he had been gazing at earlier in an attempt to redirect the conversation. Somehow, the prospect of regrowing limbs was a more unsettling affront to his understanding of biology than the existence of merfolk in the first place. “What were you telling me about this knife?”

“Aye, that one,” the owner replied, gently taking it from Dipper’s hand and running it over his fingers to feel the blade. Pacifica shivered as he did so, feeling the water around her plunge in temperature again. The numbers on her mask confirmed it—something was actually changing, and it wasn’t just her perception of it. “This is what we call a seaforged blade.”

“Seaforged?” Dipper asked curiously. “How does that work? I didn’t think you could have fire down here.”

“We can’t,” the merman grinned in response. “We do all the forge work off-site—there’s a crevice in the tunnels that goes down for miles. We lower the metal down into the earth, so far that the natural heat of the planet turns it molten. Then, it’s a race against time and fire to forge it into shape before it cools.”

“That’s amazing,” Dipper responded, reaching out and taking the blade as it was offered to him. “How much would this cost?”

“For you, nothing,” the merman responded, interlacing his fingers. “I know who you are. Everyone in the city knows who you are. Consider it a gift, from me to you.”

“Oh,” Dipper said in surprise as he took the knife and slipped it into an empty holster on the outside of his leg. Even though Pacifica had gotten her hair tie for free, a knife was a somewhat different matter. “Thank you.”

“You only get the one!” the shopkeeper laughed as the two humans turned away. His laughter was a combination of a human’s chuckle, and a dolphin’s cackle. “Don’t go asking for any favors again.”

Dipper waved back to the stall as he and Pacifica turned down the alleyway and began walking. In the distance, Sam and the tiburónes could barely be seen progressing ahead. This time, it was Dipper’s turn to shiver as they passed through a cold patch of water. In addition to the chill, the masks were beginning to compensate more strongly for the decreasing levels of light as they amped up their night vision.

“Well, that was disconcerting,” Pacifica grimaced to herself as she imagined the growth of the stub that used to be the merman’s arm. It was an image that she was unlikely to get out of her head any time soon.

“I agree,” Dipper replied, swallowing the faint taste of bile that had arisen in the back of his throat. “That just convinces me even more that merfolk and humans don’t belong together. Not as friends, but like… as couples. It’s biologically suspect.”

“You may see that,” Pacifica replied, “but I don’t think Sam does. He looks at Mermando and he sees a threat. It makes sense if you think about it. Mermando is everything that Sam is—rich, powerful, charming—but he also has two things going for him that Sam doesn’t.”

“What might those be?” Dipper asked as he gently wrapped the fingers of his left hand around Pacifica’s and the fingers of his right around the handle of his new knife. They both fit quite well.

“First off, Mermando’s exotic,” Pacifica began. “There’s a real mystery to him. The second is that he and Mabel have known each other for a longer time, and have a history together. For Sam, who’s looking in from the outside, that’s a lot to overcome.”

“But Sam is a really good guy,” Dipper pointed out. “He and Mabel may be very different, but they’re both passionate people who are creative and love to have fun. Plus, they already like each other, even if they don’t know it yet.”

“He may just not be able to see it that way,” Pacifica shrugged. “You know how easy it can be to get in your own head about things like this.”

“That’s true,” Dipper admitted. “But really,” he continued, “I think that Sam is just being a little paranoid about all of this. He knows that we’ll be going back to land with him. Plus, he’s an actual human, while Mermando is… well, a merman. There’s a pretty obvious reason why those two things don’t go together.”

“You may think it’s obvious,” sighed Pacifica. “But Mabel may not. She doesn’t think the same way as you. If she decides that she loves Mermando over Sam, I don’t think the fact that he’s half fish is going to stand in the way of that. Mabel is really worried about doing this right too, you know. She’s just as conflicted as Sam is, even if she’s doing a better job of hiding it.”

“This is a disgusting line of conversation,” Dipper grimaced, lightly patting the seaforged knife that was now strapped to his thigh. “I don’t want to think about how merfolk work in bed.”

“You may not want to, but you have to,” Pacifica smiled, though she shared Dipper’s opinion. “Every girl thinks about it when she looks at a guy as a potential partner. The fact that this potential partner is a fish doesn’t change that.”

“Do you think about me like that?” Dipper asked slyly, batting his eyelashes at Pacifica. She responded by punching him in the arm, then pulling him in for a quick hug.

“I don’t have to think about it,” she whispered. “I know about it.”

“You’re always so attractive at the most inconvenient times,” Dipper responded, turning and playfully pushing Pacifica away from him. “This entire vacation has been like that—no privacy, and a lot of you.”

“You’re strong,” Pacifica replied, patting him on the back. “You can stand it for now. This week will be over soon enough, and we’ll be back in Gravity Falls, with all the privacy you could want.”

“You’re right,” Dipper acknowledged, taking a deep breath. “There are bigger things to deal with at the moment.”

“Exactly,” Pacifica nodded, falling into step besides, and slightly behind him. “We’ve got to rescue Ford, and solve the Mermando, Sam, and Mabel problem. Then we can deal with ourselves.”

“So here’s the question, then,” Dipper asked, lightly bouncing on his heels as he started to pick up speed in the pursuit of Sam and the soldiers. “Do we need to talk to Sam or Mabel directly? I think Mermando’s a lost cause.”

Pacifica was silent.

“Pacifica?” Dipper asked, turning to where his girlfriend had stood beside him. She was no longer there.

Dipper spun on his heels, looking around for where she could possibly have gone—the street around them was strangely deserted, so it was unlikely that a group of merfolk had kidnapped her. However, she wouldn’t have run away from him, especially in the unfamiliar city. His hand slipped down his thigh, quickly finding the seaforged knife that he had been gifted. He ran his finger along the blade as he turned around again.

Farther down the alleyway, Sam was swimming along intently, scouring the city for any sign of Mabel. The two tiburónes who were guarded their party had progressed along with him, not noticing the activity behind them. Dipper then felt the currents of the water trickle strangely against his neck.

He craned his head to look up, and screamed.

Pacifica was floating in the water just overhead, her limbs flailing as she tried to get his attention. Peering into her helmet, Dipper could see that her headset had fallen off, and prevented her from contacting him.

She was suspended off of the ground by her hair, which had been bundled into a thick and coiling rope. Wrapped within her hair was a wretched and green-cloaked fist, connected to a torso with strangely disjointed arms. The vampire was clinging to the second story of a nearby building, digging into the masonry with its stubby nails. As Dipper watched, the burning eyes of the beast refocused on him, almost entirely obscured by cascading waves of dark hair and the floating locks of a bushy beard.

Instantly, Dipper brandished his knife and leapt into the air, feeling the whirring mechanisms in his wrist and ankles increase his buoyancy as he sprang for the vampire. He grabbed ahold of Pacifica’s leg, yanking her down and vaulting himself further up as the monster hissed at him.

As Dipper clambered up Pacifica’s body, he peered into the glass of her mask—she was screaming, crying with pain at the force on her hair. Around her face, water was starting to leak in at the sealed edges of the mask

But, glancing past the flurry of bubbles that enveloped the madness, he could see that Sam and the tiburónes were still ignorant of the vampire within the walls of El Pescadorado—Pacifica’s cries were not penetrating the water, and Sam was no longer receiving signals from the headsets.

“Voice communication!” Dipper commanded as he wrapped his gloved hand around the wrist of the vampire. The barbs on the gloves were fully extended, causing the beast to hiss in pain. “Full radio broadcast!” Dipper heard a slight click as the channel the headset was operating on switched over.

From above him, the vampire craned its disjointed neck downwards, drawing its burning orange eyes closer to his mask—for some reason, the monster’s face seemed oddly familiar to Dipper. The temperature of the water around the beast was several degrees lower than that of the surrounding city.

At the moment, however, Dipper had other concerns. With a grunt, he buried his knife in the wrist of the arm that was holding onto Pacifica’s hair, and looked up at the vampire with the expectation of release. However, the beast only cracked a bloody, sharp-toothed smile and shook Pacifica harder in an attempt to dislodge him.

Dipper winced to himself, apologizing to Pacifica internally as he changed his grip on the knife—the wound it left behind in the beast sealed up almost instantly. With his left hand, Dipper pushed the head of the vampire up and back, forcing its gaping jaws and piercing teeth away from the blonde’s head, and his own arms.

With his right, he placed the seaforged blade against Pacifica’s hair, and pulled. A violent tearing sound ricocheted through the water as he sliced through the golden strands, as close to the vampire’s hand as he could manage.

The vampire looked at the bundle of yellow hair in his fist confusedly as Dipper and Pacifica dropped to the abandoned street. Pacifica’s whimpering was audible through the water as she grabbed her scalp in pain, forcing the mask back down and preventing it from leaking. The accumulated water had already reached her lips, her ragged breathing burbling in the fluid.

Dipper’s gaze shot back up to the monster as its eyes refocused on the couple, helpless, injured, and abandoned in the street. The orange fire in the beast’s eyes burned all the brighter as it leapt towards them.

“HELP!” Dipper screamed as loudly as he could, causing the feedback on his own headset to whine in his ears as the signal was broadcast through the water. Farther down the alleyway, Sam’s head snapped back in a panic, followed by those of the tiburónes.

Dipper quickly adjusted his grip on the knife, thrusting it up into the water as he shielded Pacifica with his body, the outstretched claws of the vampire hurtling towards them. He closed his eyes as the monster approached them, wincing out of fear and panic.

Contact was never made—as, with a solid thunk, the trident of the female tiburón arced through the water and impacted the assassin squarely in the shoulder. The soldiers had closed the gap between themselves and the humans they were supposed to be protecting in moments, so hydrodynamic and powerful were their bodies, evolved for the water and trained for war.

The vampire hissed in pain as it tumbled down the street, finally coming to its feet about a block down the road. The orange fire in its eyes burned as it reached up to the trident in its shoulder and grabbed ahold of it, pulling it from its flesh with a hating scream. The holes it left behind quickly closed, with barely a puff of blue blood escaping the wounds.

Dipper and Pacifica started in shock as they felt the arms of Sam and the other tiburón around them, pulling them back from the scene of the battle. The soldier who had thrown her weapon swam between the vampire and her charges.

As Dipper and Pacifica were carried away, they couldn’t help but watch in awe as the unarmed mermaid squared off against the vampire, who bore the trident it had pulled from its shoulder moments before.

The vampire charged forward directly, having lost the advantage of subtlety and surprise. The only unknown was its reach, which was extended both by the trident and by the loose joints of its torso.

However, the reach of the mermaid was greater. With a snapping sound like a whip, she brought her tail forward, creating a wave that buffeted the vampire back to the ground and tore the trident from his grip. The force of the tiburón’s tail would have been easily enough to shatter bone.

Lunging forward, the soldier snatched the weapon from the sea and brought it swirling down on the monster’s shoulder. It tried to dodge to the side, but was rebuffed by another wave from the mermaid’s tail. Movements that had moments before seemed lethal were now clunky and disoriented, so completely outclassed was the invader by the tiburón’s power. 

With muscles bulging, and churning up a crash of bubbles with every stroke, the solder beat the vampire back against the wall of the house it had first clung to when it lifted Pacifica up by her hair.

The mermaid struck the butt of her trident against the wall next to the vampire’s head, causing loose masonry to tumble down and collide with the creature in a rain of stone, forcing it to the ground as it attempted to protect itself. Dipper knew from experience that a headshot was enough to take them down.

And, it appeared to be a headshot that the tiburón was intent on delivering. Another smashing pass of the tail forced the vampire into a crumpled ball as the soldier pulled her trident back, aiming directly at the monster’s temple. Salt glistened on the mermaid’s muscles, and Dipper shielded Pacifica’s eyes as she thrust the trident forward.

“Wait!” came the voice of Mermando, echoing commandingly through the water. The soldier who had the vampire pinned froze, but didn’t look at her prince—she wasn’t about to allow the invader to escape. She licked her lips, snarling in disappointment at not being able to deliver the killing blow. Every other neck, however, craned up towards the roof of the cavern.

From the buildings on the ceiling, Mermando quickly descended to hover in the water just above the scene of the battle, his blue-green tail undulating in the calming sea. Mabel had her arms wrapped around the prince’s neck, allowing him to carry her through the water at greater speeds. Dipper was tempted to look at Sam, but was transfixed by the sight before him.

Staying twenty feet above the street, Dipper watched as Mabel and Mermando whispered to each other—he was unable to make out their words. Mermando’s expression, however, was one of worry, while Mabel’s was one of shock and astonishment. After another moment’s conference, they shared a nod.

“We’re taking this vampire alive,” Mermando instructed as Mabel let go of his neck and slowly drifted to the wrecked street below. “Our beloved Mabel has requested it. Plus, it’s a smart tactical decision.” The tiburónes around the scene nodded—they were willing to do in the name of war what they weren’t in the name of Mabel.

The gold-tailed mermaid stayed at the ready as Mabel landed on the cavern floor with a crouch, slowly standing up before the invader. Mermando nervously stroked his hair as she walked forward.

Dipper watched in shock as Mabel slowly approached the vampire, her head cocked to the side. Now that his sister and the monster were side-by-side, he remembered where he had previously seen the vampire. Mabel’s next word confirmed it.

“Hudson?”


	22. Interrogation

The stone mounts around Hudson’s chains creaked, cracked, and groaned as he struggled against the restraints. His skin, unlike the other vampires, was still bound tightly around his arms, revealing the cords of inhumanly strong muscles underneath. Littering the floor next to him were smaller chains that he had easily snapped—those restraining him now were meant for large ships.

“I don’t understand this…” Dipper mumbled to himself as he pulled out his Weslee and quickly began to flip through scans of the journals. His actual journal, which was much less waterproof, was sitting in a waterproof bag on the crescent beach. “Why is he here? Why is he a vampire? Why are vampires here to begin with?”

“Let’s start with a more basic question,” began Sam, his voice harsh and aggressive as he stepped into the center of the room. “Who the hell is ‘he’ to begin with? Then we can talk about what he might be doing here.”

The eyes of Pacifica, Mermando, Dipper, and the other guards in the room immediately fixated on Sam. Mabel, who sat in a chair with her hands clasped beneath her chin, and Pacifica’s hand on her back, remained focused on the struggling Hudson in the other room.

Hudson had been captured by the tiburónes and transported to the palace, where he was confined within the most secure prison cell available—even so, as evidenced by the number of broken chains, impromptu upgrades had been required. He was eventually forced into a kneeling position on the floor, with multiple iron bands around his legs. His disjointed arms, bound in chains, were suspended by his sides, almost as though he were mounted to a crucifix. His head, shrouded in a cloud of black hair and a full beard, only penetrated by the glowing orange fire within his eyes, alternated between defeated resignation and mad struggle.

Four guards stood at attention in each corner of his cell. They were fully armored, and instead of the tridents that they carried on normal missions, instead bore spears tipped with massive, glistening diamonds. Each one of their faceted edges had been polished to a razor sheen—a trident would penetrate and stab, but these spears would lance and shred.

His cell was separated from the others by a thick panel of glass, allowing them to keep an eye on him as they discussed their situation, though a locked metal door allowed access from one room to the other. Dipper and Mermando had been standing close to the glass, monitoring Hudson as the scarred adventurer struggled to concoct a plan. Mabel, who had been uncharacteristically silent, had quickly sought out the only chair in the room with Pacifica by her side, while Sam had retreated into a corner, glowering out at both Mermando and the vampire from beneath his furrowed brow. At the entrance to the room was the red-haired, golden-tailed mermaid who had captured Hudson, silently monitoring the situation. The only sources of light in the room came from Hudson’s cell, Dipper’s Weslee, and the faintly glowing masks of the humans.

“He is Hudson,” Pacifica answered, filling the space left in the dead water. “We met him last year on a road trip up to Seattle. He worked in a fish restaurant, and I think he and Mabel talked some after that.”

Sam’s eyes quickly shot to Mabel, who nodded in assent. Sam then paused, seeing the red lines of worry and fright around Mabel’s eyes. This was someone she obviously cared about, and he was turning up in the most unlikely of situations. Mabel was worried—and as angry as Sam was, even he recognized that being aggressive was going to cause Mabel more difficulty than it saved her.

“Okay,” Sam replied, his voice now calm and steady. The last few hours had been an emotional rollercoaster for him, chaotically swinging back and forth between his affection for Mabel and livid green jealously at Mermando—emotions only further complicated by the unexpected arrival of another of Mabel’s past crushes. But he was a Southeast above all, and Southeasts took charge. “Thank you for answering my question. Now, what exactly is he doing here?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Dipper replied as he closed the Weslee and tucked it into his pocket with a sigh. “I mean, he’s obviously a vampire. That much is obvious, but whatever caused his vampirism is probably different from what forced him down into the ocean. We’re dealing with two different questions here.”

“Was he not a vampire when you saw him before?” asked Mermando, rubbing his chin with his hands. As the current authority within the city of El Pescadorado, he had a vested interest in extracting as much information from their prisoner as he could. The fact that the prisoner had a personal question to his guests made things far more complicated.

“No,” Mabel replied, finally speaking after a long period of silence, her voice firm and reassured. “Trust me, I would know. Whatever… this is, it hasn’t been going on long.” The Hudson she saw before her was not the same as the Hudson she had known—that much was obvious.

“And he was our waiter for lunch,” Pacifica confirmed, nodding her head. “He obviously had no problems with the sun then.”

“Good point, girls,” Dipper praised, pulling out the Weslee again. Putting it away earlier had been more instinctual than practical. “So we know that whenever he got turned, it’s been recent. But, that doesn’t really answer how he got turned, or what he’s doing here. I don’t think that we’re going to be able to answer those questions unless we can ask him.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” asked Mermando, turning to Dipper with a shrug. “Every vampire we’ve ever managed to capture has been completely non-responsive. It’s a miracle that Hudson has lasted as long as he has.”

“That’s the thing,” Dipper mumbled to himself, thumbing through the journal pages with a renewed vigor. Now, he was searching for a particular section. “Vampirism, as a disease or whatnot, isn’t fatal. Sure, you have to play by different rules, and you get a bunch of powers, but it doesn’t kill you unless you let it. And it also doesn’t make you flee underwater.”

“So… something else is forcing the vampires to do all this, then?” Pacifica asked curiously. Mabel’s head perked up at the possibility—if Hudson wasn’t doing this of his own free will, then it was possible that he could be saved. The prospect of Hudson descending so far by his own choice had been devastating—but, if the man she had once known was still hidden somewhere inside, then hope remained.

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Dipper answered with a grimace. “From my own personal experience, I know what it’s like to have your body driven by someone else. It’s not pleasant.”

“You don’t think it’s Bill, do you?” Mabel asked, before quickly covering her mouth. There was nothing taboo about saying his name, but the possibility that he could still exist somewhere was one that had consciously not been spoken into existence.

“Bill?” Sam asked, raising an eyebrow. “Who’s Bill?”

“No one that concerns us right now,” Dipper replied, raising a hand in caution. Pacifica wrapped her arm around Mabel’s shoulders and squeezed her a little tighter. “To answer your question—no, I don’t think it’s Bill. I know Bill. If it was him, he wouldn’t be able to resist mocking us. No, at most, I think that it’s someone, or some _thing,_ like Bill.”

“Then how are we supposed to get this person out of Hudson’s head?” Pacifica asked worriedly. “The last time we tried to deal with someone who could control minds, it almost destroyed the world.”

“Destroyed the world?” Sam asked, his jaw dropping. “How? I thought you guys just hunted monsters and catalogued weirdness; I didn’t think you literally stood between our dimension and destruction!”

“Well, it doesn’t happen that often,” Dipper mumbled. “And it’s never good when it gets to that point. But, Pacifica, I don’t think that this is going to get that bad—not now, at least. We don’t need to destroy whatever’s controlling Hudson, we just need to remove him from its influence. How to do it, though… I have no idea. I’m not Ford.”

“You’re the closest thing to Ford we’ve got,” Mabel reassured her brother, swallowing as she did so. “We don’t have a memory gun, and we don’t have time to wait until Hudson gets so tired that we can just beat the monster out. We need to do something now.”

“We could always go into his mind like we did with Stan,” Dipper suggested, pulling up the page on the Weslee with the incantation for following a dream demon into a possessed person’s consciousness. “That worked when we had to do it before.”

“Bad idea,” Mabel mumbled, tucking her head between her knees. “Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea.”

“What?” Dipper asked defensively, turning the Weslee around to look at the journal page. “How is it a bad idea?”

“We don’t know anything about Hudson! Or the demon, or… whatever, for that matter!” Mabel exploded, shouting so loudly that the headsets squealed before adjusting for the change in volume. “If Bill had wanted to kill us when we went into Stan’s mind, he could have. Without a second thought. If whatever’s controlling Hudson doesn’t like screwing around with us, we won’t make it back out.”

“We may not have a choice here, Mabel,” Dipper sighed, walking over to his sister and placing a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “After all, this isn’t just about saving Hudson. It’s about finding Ford, and freeing Mermando and this entire city from vampire attacks. It’s really lucky that we have Hudson here to talk to… and I just don’t want to squander this opportunity.”

“If the alternative is squandering your life, then count me out,” fired back Mabel, her hand flashing up to her shoulder and anchoring Dipper’s in place. “And I’m not going to let you go either. I lo… I really like Hudson, but if it comes down to choosing between him and you guys, then I know who I’m picking.” Sam’s expression rapidly rotated between anger and hope, finally settling on wonder at Mabel’s immense capacity for love, combined with her unbreakably strong will, and willingness to make hard decisions.

“Sam, Mermando,” Dipper began, leaving his hand in place as he turned to face the blonde boy. “I’m going in. Are you coming with me?” Mermando and Sam looked at each other—now, no longer rivals, but compatriots.

“The duty of a prince is to his people,” Mermando finally began, speaking with certainty and authority. “Normally, I have shown no hesitation when it comes to… extracting information from our prisoners, but that hasn’t worked so far. I would be honored to accompany you into the… mind of this vampire.”

Sam opened his mouth, unsure of what he would wind up saying until he actually said it, only to find himself cut off by Pacifica. 

“Boys, don’t get ahead of yourselves,” she ordered, tapping into her own motherly, authoritative voice. She placed her own hand over Mabel’s, holding Dipper in place even more firmly than before. “Dipper, think critically about this. We know that we can go in after the… mind demon, or whatever. Is it possible that we could bring it out here? I know you’ve done exorcisms before.”

“How?” Dipper asked, their roles reversed as he now turned to his girlfriend for assistance in defeating the enemy they found themselves challenging. During both the shapeshifter attack, and in dealing with the monsters that had crawled through the portals on the road to Seattle, Pacifica had often been the bulwark between victory and defeat. “This isn’t a ghost. All we know about this thing is that it likes infecting minds. Vampires in particular, for some reason.”

“Then give it a mind to infect!” Pacifica offered, wrapping her fingers between Dipper’s and holding his hand on Mabel’s shoulder. Beneath their grip, Pacifica could feel Mabel trying to do the same. “If we can force it from Hudson’s mind and into another one, and then sacrifice that mind, then problem solved. I don’t want you going into that thing.”

“Where are we going to find a mind to sacrifice?” Mabel mumbled, craning her neck to look up at Pacifica. For a moment, the image was almost comical—three teenagers, all wearing glass masks discussing the best way to burn a potential demon out of a vampire. However, the grim prospects of the situation overwhelmed the humor.

“I’ll do it,” Sam offered, as brashly as ever. “I mean, not permanently. If you can take the monster out of Hudson’s head and put it in mine, then you can ask him your questions. Afterwards, take the thing back out of my head and put it in his, and we’ll throw him back out into the ocean.”

“No,” Pacifica, Dipper, and Mabel all said in unison, their voices a blend of confusion and disgust.

“That makes zero sense,” Mabel berated. “Even if it worked, we would still be sacrificing Hudson. And we’re not going to do that unless we have to.”

“Besides,” Pacifica chastised, “we don’t know what that thing might do to your brain while it’s in there. You may be the oldest here, but I still have a responsibility to get you back up to that Fourth of July Party in one piece. Because, if I don’t, your parents will tell my parents, and then I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Fine,” Sam admitted, raising his hands in defeat and leaning back against the stone wall of the observation room. “I don’t know where you’re going to find another mind to infect, though.”

“Perhaps we can use a shark,” Mermando suggested, turning to face the group. The mood was slowly lightening, since Sam’s absurd suggestion had been so quickly and harshly shot down. “They don’t have minds like we do, but they do have brains. Maybe we can trick it?”

“Wait…” Dipper mumbled to himself, his eyes darting all over the room as he gathered the disparate pieces of his thought process and put them together into a novel idea. “We may not even need that. Think about what we learned from Bill… when he possessed me, he took over my body. Not my mind. He can explore the mind, but he’s never actually taken one over… even when he was working with Ford all those years ago, he was mostly driving Ford’s body while Ford’s consciousness was in the backseat.”

“So you’re saying that we need something like a body with a brain for the orange light to infect?” Pacifica concluded, raising her eyebrows at the possibility. “That way, we could draw it out of Hudson without sacrificing the person we put it into.”

“Do you want a corpse?” Mermando offered, raising his hand as he prepared to order his soldiers to go and retrieve one. “Usually we bury our dead out beyond the borders of the city, but I’m sure that one of them would recognize the worthy sacrifice their body would be making.”

“Let’s not even risk that,” Dipper answered with a smile, though he concealed a grimace at the prince’s suggestion. When it came to governing and protecting his city, he seemed more willing to disregard the traditional bounds of decency than Dipper would have expected. “After all, the possessing entity may be able to control a body without a mind to push out—in that case, all we’d be doing was giving it a free vessel to run around in. No, what we need is something so _like_ a mind that it couldn’t tell the difference until it was too late.”

“Like a computer, or AI?” Sam suggested, cocking his head to the side. “The only thing we have down here like that is your Weslee, and I’m not sure giving the demon access to the internet is the best idea in the world.”

“Close, but not quite,” Dipper praised with a smile. “This thing obviously inhabits organic circuits. Carbon based, not silicon. A computer won’t work. But…” he continued, pointing toward the spears that the tiburónes were holding in Hudson’s cell, “a diamond will.” As he moved, he broke free from Pacifica and Mabel’s shared grip—they were now willing to let him go.

“Hypothetically?” Pacifica asked, though she felt a ray of hope at the possibility that it could work. She rubbed her fingers against Mabel’s shoulder thoughtfully.

“Hypothetically,” Dipper confirmed, lowering his head as he began to swipe through the Weslee again, hunting for the incantation that they had once used to enter Stan’s mind. “If we modify the spell, we may be able to force this thing out of Hudson’s mind and into the diamond. Once it’s in the diamond, since the diamond isn’t actually alive, the entity should just die out.”

“Hypothetically,” Sam asked again, though even he would admit that it was a better alternative than taking the demon into himself.

“Hypothetically,” Dipper confirmed once more. “But, it’s worth a shot. Mermando, do you think that you can let me into the cell? And give me one of those spears.”

“Are you sure, Dipper?” Mermando asked tentatively, though he was ready to follow the clear expert’s plan to the ends of the earth. “This could still go horribly wrong.”

“It’s better than any plan we’ve come up with so far,” Dipper answered, beginning the process of transcribing and altering the incantation. “Besides, I have high hopes that this one is going to work out. It’s certainly better than my plan to attack Gideon with gnomes.”

“I don’t know who that is,” Mermando replied, his voice and expression both betraying his confusion.

“He, like Bill, is not important,” Mabel replied, standing up and cracking her knuckles as she stepped forward next to her brother. “I’m coming with you, and I’m holding the stick.”

“Mabel,” Dipper began, pride in his voice as he reached out and took her hand. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather let Mermando or Sam do it? I’d rather lose one of them than you.”

“I take offense at that,” Sam snorted, crossing his arms defensively. He wanted to help as best he could, but knew that this problem was simply out of his league—it was difficult enough for him to understand regular monsters, much less mental ones.

“I get it,” Mermando replied with a shrug. At least the merman had a sense of humor about it.

“I’m sure,” Mabel acknowledged with a nod. Mermando then turned and began to unlock the door leading to Hudson’s cell. “I’m the only one here that he knows. If I’m the first one he sees once he wakes back up, he’s more likely to be cooperative.”

“Good point,” admitted Pacifica as she walked up behind the twins and placed her hand on Dipper’s shoulder, quickly spinning him around to face her before enveloping him in a hug. The glass of their masks made a dull clink as they contacted. “Don’t be stupid in there, dipstick.”

“I’ll try to be my regular amount of stupid,” Dipper laughed as he struggled to press his lips against the glass of his mask in a mock kiss. After stretching to his limit, he admitted defeat and shrunk away from the glass with a sigh.

“Don’t worry,” Pacifica chuckled as she pressed her fingers to the outside of her own mask and made a kissing motion, before transferring her hand to the outside of Dipper’s mask. “Soon, we’ll be back on land, and we can do it properly.”

Dipper opened his mouth to answer, but chose not to. Instead, he simply hardened his gaze in confidence and nodded at Pacifica. Stepping away, Pacifica retreated from the twins and leaned back against the stone wall next to Sam.

“Okay Mermando,” Dipper instructed as the metal door allowing access to Hudson’s cell creaked open. “You stay on this side of the door, but be ready to open it for us to escape if we need to. And, obviously, I’m going to need one of those spears.”

“At your command, Dipper,” Mermando acknowledged with a bow. It was odd for a prince to be bowing to a human, much less one as young and inexperienced as Dipper, but it showed Mermando’s ability to recognize when he was not the best one around to solve a particular problem. The prince snapped his fingers and pointed at one of the tiburónes within Hudson’s cell, who passed his spear to Dipper as the twins crossed the threshold into the prison.

Mabel gasped as she got a closer look at Hudson, and was finally able to see the immense differences from the man she had known in detail. His limbs were unnaturally gangly and disjointed, and the sunset burning within his eyes gave an intense, fiery glow to the water around him. His unkempt hair was beginning to accumulate algae and seaweed—if she looked closely enough, she imagined she could see small sea insects skittering around within it.

Most painful to see, however, was the change in the skin around his eyes. Though the glowing orbs dominated his face, the flesh around the sockets seemed both prematurely wrinkled and stretched out as though it were pinned in place by needles. The soft, supple cheeks that had previously been bordered by a well-manicured beard and grey eyes had vanished.

“Come on, Mabel,” Dipper motivated as he took the spear from the soldier and hefted its weight, finding it heavier than he had expected. “Let’s go ahead and do this. I’ll hold the diamond, and you can read.” As he spoke, he passed the Weslee to Mabel, who took it tentatively without taking her eyes off of Hudson.

Dipper stepped forward and placed his hands on the shaft of the spear, slowly extending the gemstone out towards the vampire’s forehead. Hudson himself didn’t react, his head hanging low. It appeared as though he had completely exhausted himself in the struggles to free himself from his chains.

“Wait!” Mabel shouted, causing Dipper to jerk back and bump against the glass barrier. “Are you sure that this isn’t going to possess you too? How do we know that it’s going to stay in the diamond?”

“The diamond is at the end of a long metal stick,” Dipper replied, calming his sister. The metal isn’t carbon based, so it’s impossible for whatever’s in Hudson’s head to travel along it. Mermando, the metal doesn’t have carbon in it, does it?”

Dipper, craning his neck around, looked at the prince, who shook his head in the negative.

“Okay,” Mabel continued, taking a deep breath as she steeled her resolve. “So, all I have to do is read this incantation?”

“That’s it,” Dipper confirmed, as he began to advance towards Hudson once again. “When I make contact, place your hand on the spear, and start to read.”

Slowly, the space between the diamond and Hudson’s head narrowed. As the tip of the gemstone approached the vampire, he started to become more and more agitated, flailing around madly in an attempt to flee from the weapon. Whether the entity knew what was about to happen, or was merely scared of the possibility of being stabbed, was uncertain.

Dipper, however, kept his resolve in the face of the chaos. He continued advancing steadily, until the tip of the spear finally reached the wrinkled skin of Hudson’s forehead. As soon as contact was made, the water around them seemed to become strangely placid, and the glowing orbs within the vampire’s eyes dimmed. The facets of the diamond, honed to sharp points as they were, sank a few millimeters into Hudson’s flesh.

“Mabel, do it now,” Dipper instructed, his voice cool and calm. Moving quickly, his twin quickly reached out and wrapped her hand around the metal shaft of the spear and, in a shaking voice, began to read.

“Videntis omnium, magister mentium,” she began, her eyes flashing from the screen of the Weslee to the dramatic change that was happening at the tip of the spear.

The water around them seemed to grow unnaturally hot, prompting their wetsuits to compensate for the temperature difference. Even the tiburónes sitting in the corners of the cell seemed to shrink away. Hudson’s mouth fell open, and an inhuman shriek penetrated the water, prompting everyone in the room except for the twins to cover their ears. The orange glow within Hudson’s eyes was overpowered by a blue light, though the two shades battled for dominance within his pupils. The diamond, too, began to glow.

“Quod tu’um est officum omnino!” Mabel continued as Dipper held the spear firm against Hudson’s skull. The twins’ hair was blown backwards as the water began to tremble around them, almost as though they were standing in the midst of a hurricane. Hudson’s arms strained, veins bulging with fury and effort as the chains binding him to the wall started to creak and crack.

The lights within his eyes started to flicker like a strobe—the diamond glowing orange and his eyes blue, and then reversing several times a second. Soon, however, the gemstone began to glow more permanently warm.

“Mabel!” Dipper instructed, speaking as calmly as he could, while still being loud enough for his sister to hear him. “Finish the spell!”

“Magister mentium, magister mentium, magister mentium!” Mabel repeated in a shout, leaving her hand on the spear as the last strains of her voice died away in the water.

Hudson’s mouth slammed shut, and a pulse of force shot out from him in a wave as his head slumped over, his arms going slack. Dipper and Mabel were blasted away from him, tearing the diamond away from his head as they collided with the glass wall. Mermando opened the door, preparing to drag them out.

Dipper, however, raised his hand, warning the merman to stay back as he observed the diamond at the tip of the spear. Where it had previously been glimmering white, it now glowed a violent, pulsing orange. Hudson’s eyes were closed, and still. As they continued to watch, the light within the diamond slowly began to fade, eventually dying with a plaintive whine that left the gemstone the same natural color as before.

“Did it work?” Mermando asked, his voice barely above a whisper as Dipper slowly got to his feet.

Before Dipper was able to turn and help Mabel stand, however, Sam had pushed past Mermando and rushed into the room. Wrapping his hands around her forearms, he cautiously helped her stand. Her hair was a chaotic mess, and she was still holding onto the Weslee with an iron fisted grip—a phone that wasn’t made from alien metal would have shattered. Sam gently took the device from her and passed it back to Dipper.

“Are you alright?” Sam asked as he gently brushed Mabel’s hair back. He bent down and picked up the hair tie she had been using, which had been stripped away by the power of the exorcism.

“Yeah, I’m fine…” Mabel acknowledged, shakily raising her arms and tying her hair back into a ponytail again. Her face was already red with adrenaline and excitement, so she felt no inclination to hide her blush.

“What about you?” Pacifica asked, walking past Mermando more calmly and looking Dipper up and down. She had seen her boyfriend thrown around far more often, and had a much better sense of the kind of abuse that he could withstand.

“I’m fine too,” Dipper confirmed, before passing the now impotent spear back to the soldier he had taken it from. “That was… dramatic, but I’ve never known a mind demon that wasn’t fond of drama.”

“You’ve known one mind demon,” Pacifica remarked snidely as her boyfriend turned to face Hudson, who remained slumped over in his chains.

“Yes, and that’s a one hundred percent drama rate,” Dipper snickered as he crouched down in front of the vampire. Even with the possessing power purged from his mind, he seemed to have no difficulty in breathing or living underwater. “Mabel,” Dipper instructed, curling his finger to beckon his sister forward. “Come here.”

As soon as Mabel’s name was mentioned, Hudson showed a reaction. His head jerked up and his eyes flew open, now free from the orange glow that had lurked within them. His stormy grey irises were visible again, though his pupils were rapidly dilating and contracting, while the whites of his eyes were practically red with bloodshot, swollen arteries and veins lancing across his sclera.

He tossed his head back, causing his hair to flare up around him and sending a cascading wave of sea mites and green plant matter into the water. He inhaled, but then suddenly started to cough violently, sending bursts of sputum and saliva into the water. Particularly viscous trails danced away from his prominent canines. Mermando, with a quick flick of his tail, sent the polluted water away from the humans.

Slowly, the coughing dwindled, and his head hung low once again. With sharp, punctuating cracking sounds, the disjointed bones of his arms slowly clicked back into place, restoring him to the proportions of a normal human. He coughed once more before finally seeming to get his body under control. The stretched and wrinkled skin around his eyes had assumed a sheen of normalcy, and he now simply looked tired.

“Oh…” Hudson grumbled, still staring down at the floor of his cell. His voice was just as deep and resonant as it had been back in Yachats, only made more powerful by the shaking of the water that everyone was surrounded by. It was as though two stones were grinding together in his throat, in the most pleasant way imaginable. “I forgot that I don’t need to breathe anymore.”

“Hudson?” Mabel asked tentatively, stepping forward and placing a hand on Dipper’s shoulder, who was still kneeling before the vampire. Sam made a move to step forward and follow her, but Pacifica held him back with a shake of her head.

“Who?” Hudson asked as he craned his neck back up, regaining his ability to exercise control of muscles that he had long since lost ownership of. “Hudson… Hudson is me. That is who I once was. And you… I remember you. Mabel?”

“Yes, Hudson!” Mabel replied enthusiastically. Slowly, it seemed that Hudson’s memories and sense of self were returning. Dipper knew from personal experience how long that process could take. “What do you remember?”

“I remember… you,” Hudson answered, the movement of his pupils finally calming as he started to focus on the people standing before him. “You had brown hair. And bright eyes. And braces. You don’t have braces anymore.”

“I got them off!” Mabel smiled back at him with pity. “I’m glad they’re off.”

“So am I,” Hudson smiled back weakly, before turning to face the others in the room. “I remember you, and you,” he continued, gesturing with his head as best he could to Dipper and Pacifica.

“Hi, Hudson,” Dipper greeted warmly. “She’s Pacifica, and I’m Dipper.”

“You had the fish tacos,” Hudson nodded. “I remember because of Mabel. But you…” he spoke on, pointing towards Sam, “I don’t know you. And you,” he continued, casting his eyes towards Mermando, “you’re a fish man. Why not? I didn’t think vampires existed until I was one. I’m sorry that I worked in a fish restaurant; if any of them were your friends.”

“Don’t worry,” Mermando assured him, trying to strike a balance between princely authority and his own innate friendliness. “We eat them too.”

“Go back a second,” Dipper interjected, waving his hand to get Hudson’s dwindling attention. He was clearly exhausted, but they had questions that needed to be answered before they could set him free, or retire for the night. It was getting late, and their exhaustion was catching up with them. “You’re a vampire now. Why don’t you tell us about that?”

“Yeah, I guess that must be a bit of a surprise,” Hudson shrugged, a dim smile flickering across his lips for the first time since he had been freed from the influence of the orange light. “I didn’t really expect it either, to be honest.”

“How did it happen?” Pacifica interjected. “You weren’t a vampire when you served us in Yachats last year. You were working in the sunlight.”

“Actually,” Hudson corrected wearily. “I was. I had gotten bitten about a week before, but I was still in denial about what was happening. It takes a long time for the weakness to sunlight to set in, so I was still able to go about my normal routine for about two months. Of course, that’s long gone now.” He laughed, but the sob and misery beneath it was evident.

“Who bit you?” Dipper asked, pulling out his Weslee and opening up his notes. It was important to get as much information now as he possibly could. “Do you have any physical features of the vampire, a name, anything like that?”

“I wasn’t even awake when it happened,” Hudson replied with a shake of his head. “All I know is that I left my window open one night, and then I woke up feeling pale and clammy. I didn’t even see any holes in my neck. Or… anywhere.”

“Maybe they were hidden by your beard,” Sam suggested with a weak grin.

“Maybe,” Hudson replied, either not noticing the joke, or not finding it funny.

“Okay, so that answers the question of when you got turned,” Dipper commented, reaching out and gently touching Hudson’s shoulder. The vampire flinched at the contact, but soon eased into it and looked Dipper in the eyes, though not before glancing up at Mabel. “But what are you doing here, underwater?”

“I… don’t know…” Hudson answered, closing his eyes and squinting. “Once I got turned, I felt… different. It wasn’t just that I was a vampire now, it was like something was influencing me. Like a magnet in the base of my skull.”

“What was it telling you to do?” Mabel asked, reaching out and touching Hudson in the same way her brother was. Hudson didn’t flinch, but instead leaned into the contact even more so than he had Dipper’s. Mabel’s theory about Hudson’s familiarity with her was proving to be correct. “Was it controlling you like the light was?”

“No… no,” Hudson replied, uncertain at first, but then firmly. “That… thing was different. This was more subtle. It was like it was telling me two things at once—it wanted me to go east, and also as far away from there as possible. Maybe it’s how birds feel when they migrate.”

“East would take him to Gravity Falls,” Pacifica observed, looking down at Dipper, who was furiously scribbling notes.

“The Gravity Well,” Dipper confirmed with a nod. “Once he was technically an anomaly, the law of weirdness magnetism started to affect him. But, it obviously wasn’t strong enough, because he wound up here instead.”

“Whatever was driving him away… it’s probably the same thing that’s forcing the other anomalies within the Well to circle around the edge,” Sam suggested.

“So we know it’s localized within the Falls,” Dipper continued, his eyes rapidly switching between glowing with excitement and glowering with worry. “But that doesn’t answer why you came here. Or how you ended up underwater to begin with.”

“I would like to know the answer to that question myself,” Mermando interjected, swimming up to join the circle of humans clustering around the bound vampire. The soldiers in the corners of the room started to attention, keeping a diligent eye on their prince as he approached what was still, to them, the enemy. “And why exactly you decided to attack my city.”

“Your city?” Hudson asked, more energetically now as he continue to gain his bearings. “Are you the president here?”

“I’m not a president; I am a prince!” Mermando replied vehemently. “I have an obligation to protect my people, and you’ve been picking them off one by one.”

“Oh… I’m sorry,” Hudson apologized, hanging his head. “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want to. I… don’t really remember what happened. I just have flashes.”

“I advise that you remember,” Mermando warned harshly. In unison, the tiburónes in the room banged the butts of their spears on the stone floor.

“I’m really tired,” Hudson answered, trying to defend himself. “I haven’t had anything to eat in a long time. Or drink, technically… being a vampire is weird.” Mabel started to withdraw her hand with a grimace, before thinking better of it and returning it to Hudson’s shoulder. “Do you think I could get some blood. It doesn’t have to be human… just mammalian. But even that’s not mandatory… a fish would at least tide me over.”

“You’ll eat once you answer our questions,” Mermando commanded authoritatively. “And, we’ll set you free then as well. Under _heavy_ supervision.”

“I understand that,” Hudson replied, his stomach grumbling as he turned back to Dipper. “The reason why I came here is actually pretty simple,” he continued, beginning to answer the adventurer’s question. “I met some other vampires who were feeling the same magnetic pull and push I was. They told me that a bunch of us were going to the Bahamas to get away from whatever was driving us away.”

“Why underwater?” shrugged Pacifica in confusion. “I thought vampires were all about caves and coffins and castles and bats.”

“We used to be,” Hudson acknowledged. “But that was when caves and castles were still unexplored. Ever since people started to live everywhere, we’ve had to get a bit more cautious. And underwater is a really good place for us to stay. We don’t need to breathe, after all, and at a certain depth, sunlight can’t penetrate the water. We can go up during the night to get food, and we’re far away from the prying eyes of humans. Honestly, if we hadn’t gotten off on the wrong foot, sir, I think your city would have been a marvelous place for us to live.”

His final comment was addressed to Mermando, who appeared slightly taken aback. To him, the vampires had always been an external threat that needed to be controlled and eventually eradicated. The vampire before him now, however, appeared well-spoken, decent, and polite.

“Where did it all go wrong, then?” Mabel asked sympathetically, kneeling next to Hudson. She reached up and touched his fingers, running the tips of her gloves over his ragged fingernails. Sam started to fidget. “I mean, with the… orange light.”

“I… I don’t know,” Hudson replied, squinting his eyes as he tried to remember. “I was traveling with two other vampires here. Once we got to where everyone told us to go, we stole backpacks and filled them with rocks, and just walked into the water.”

“You needed something to weigh you down,” Dipper nodded. “It must have been terrifying feeling your lungs fill with water.”

“It was,” Hudson acknowledged. “But honestly, I had already done so many new things as a vampire that I just kind of took it in stride. Once we got down here, though, we met another vampire, just kind of standing on the bottom of the ocean. We thought he was there to greet us, but his eyes were glowing orange. He reached out and touched us, and… that was it. The next thing I remember is waking up here.”

“Really?” Mermando asked, unable to keep the tide of anger out of his voice. “That’s all you can give us? What was the possession like? How was it controlling you? Where are the vampires based? How did you get through our kelp nets? We need something to go on here!”

“I’m sorry!” Hudson apologized emphatically. He had no power in the situation, and he knew it. Even Dipper and Pacifica were largely sidelined, and were only being used as tools by Mermando to get what the prince wanted. The only one with influence in the room was Mabel.

“It’s okay, Hudson,” Mabel assured him, removing her hand from his shoulder and standing up. Moving deftly, she started to run her fingers through the vampire’s hair, cleaning out the sea matter that had accumulated while he was possessed. “Take your time. Anything you can give us at all would be helpful.”

Hudson took a deep breath, more out of habit than necessity, as he felt Mabel’s gentle touch on his scalp. In unison, Mermando and Sam both clenched their fists, but relaxed their grips as Hudson began to speak.

“All I have are flashes,” he continued. “I remember… feeling like there was a very warm sun that I wanted to be closer to. I remember the grating sound as some of the other vampires were forced to file down their teeth. And… I remember tentacles. And bodies, lots of bodies.”

“Tentacles and bodies?” Dipper asked, ceasing his notetaking to look directly into Hudson’s eyes. “Do you remember anything about them? Were they alive or dead?”

“Alive,” Hudson shuddered. “Very much alive. The tentacles were… glowing, that same warm orange, and were wrapped around their necks and arms and legs.”

“Maybe that’s where all of the kidnapped merfolk have been taken,” Dipper pondered aloud as he turned to face Mermando. “Just like vampires feed on blood, maybe this… tentacle thing is feeding on their energy. That’s the only reason they would be kept alive.”

“And Ford,” Pacifica interjected with a somber nod. Dipper returned the gesture, his gaze resolute.

“Or, maybe it’s just a body farm being used by the vampires to have a steady food supply,” Mermando accused pointedly. “That seems to be the simpler explanation, and we don’t need to use the possession as a justification. The animals just want to eat. Maybe the… orange light that ‘controlled’ him isn’t even real. Maybe the glow is a thing vampires can turn on and off, just like the night vision in your masks.”

“Sir,” Hudson interjected, his voice firm, resonant, and unyielding. Even though he was the one who was in chains, he knew what he had experienced. “I had my mind invaded, penetrated, and turned inside out. All I could do was sit in the corner of my brain and cry as I felt my body being used to hunt, to kidnap, and to kill. I couldn’t see what was happening… but I remember the feelings. Trust me—this isn’t just the vampires. We’re being used as cannon fodder by something much bigger than all of us.”

Silence descended over the room as his reverberating voice, which shook the walls, faded away. Mabel, without a second thought, dropped to her knees and wrapped Hudson in a hug.

“We believe you,” Dipper acknowledged. Mabel was good at reassuring and consoling people, but there was work that needed to be done, and Dipper was intent on doing it. “We’re going to track down that body farm and bring back everyone we can. Anything you can tell us about where it might be will help us.”

“I know it’s in a large cavern,” Hudson replied, his eyes darting around as he tried to remember the routes that he had taken to get from Pescadorado to the source of the infection. “It’s completely closed to the surface, but is connected to a lot of underwater tunnels. There’s a big one, that most of the vampires use that opens close to the top of the cavern… but there’s a smaller one that runs into the bottom of it.” He closed his eyes, trying to remember more, but soon gave an exasperated sigh and slumped over in exhaustion.

“That’s a good start, Hudson,” Pacifica reassured him, stepping forward to place her hand on Dipper’s shoulder.

“Maybe I’ll remember more once I have a little time to rest,” Hudson offered, looking up at Mermando desperately. The irons around his legs, and the chains around his wrists, even tighter now that his joints were back in a normal position, were beginning to dig into and abrade his skin. The vampire’s stomach grumbled again, confirming exactly how weak he was.

Mermando looked at Dipper, who returned his questioning gaze with a nod. Mermando then turned and nodded at the soldiers, who advanced to the chains binding the vampire with a set of ornate, rusted keys.

With a clanking sound, the shackles slid from Hudson’s wrists, allowing him to crumple to the floor, unable to even support himself with his arms. A few moments later, the leg braces were removed, allowing him to splay to his full length on the cold stone.

Mabel and Dipper, moving quickly, scooped their hands under his arms and began to lift him up.

“Take him to our spare guestroom,” Mermando instructed, earning nods from his tiburónes. “Double the guard around his room, and the entrance to the sump. And take him a tuna.”

The soldiers bowed, acknowledging the orders, with two of them immediately leaving to carry them out. Pacifica and Sam exchanged glances with each other—evidently, Mermando still considered Hudson both a threat and a flight risk. Dipper and Mabel, however, occupied as they were with helping the vampire to his feet, barely registered the prince’s words.

“Thank you, Mabel,” Hudson replied, staggering as he got to his feet before finally managing to stabilize himself. Now that he was free, and more comfortable with his situation, he carried himself with a soft newfound confidence. “I’m sorry I never texted back.”

“It’s fine,” Mabel responded with a weak chuckle. “It sounds like you had some pretty major life stuff going on.”

“Still,” Hudson laughed in response. “I should have been better about it. Just because I was traveling across America with some vampires doesn’t mean that my cell phone didn’t work. And… I know you weren’t a fan of me shaving my beard.”

“I do prefer the beard,” Mabel commented. “You’ve got a weird chin. No offense.”

“None taken,” Hudson replied, flashing a toothy, pointed smile at her. “But the beard is back now. If you can stand it, I’d really like to hang out some more if you have the time.”

“We’ve got a lot to deal with right now,” Mabel answered uncomfortably. Suddenly, she became intensely and intimately aware of where she was standing—supporting Hudson’s arm over her shoulder, with Sam and Mermando both watching her intently.

The blonde-haired boy who loved her pig and could sing across the oceans, the merman prince who she had loved as a child and who was now a man in his own right, and the bearded vampire with a rich and smoky voice who she had never expected to see again—and her at the center of them all. Her head and heart began to pound.

“It’s your call,” Hudson replied lightly. “It seems like a bit more than luck that I’d meet you again, though, not to mention here of all places. And I seem to remember you telling me about your thing for vampires. That’s _definitely_ not just luck.”

Instantly, Mabel froze, causing Dipper to stumble as their forward progress was halted.

“Mabel, are you okay?” he asked, leaning forward to look at his sister.

Pacifica’s eyes were wide, watching as a tremble started to make its way up Mabel’s legs, causing her to shake from sheer intense anxiety and nervousness. Her throat started to bob up and down, swallowing the insurgent wave of bile within her stomach only to have it force its way back up again. In the corner of Mabel’s helmet, the temperature reading was fluctuating wildly, unable to distinguish between the warmth of her skin and chill of the water.

“Mabel?” Sam, Mermando, and Hudson asked in unison.

Moving more quickly than Dipper could follow, and without speaking a word, with nothing but her ragged breath making it over the connection between their headsets, Mabel threw Hudson’s arm off of her shoulders and bolted forward. She pushed past Sam and Mermando, swimming through the door from the cell into the observation room and vanishing down the long, dark, hallway to the rest of the palace. The golden-tailed mermaid let her pass willingly.

Dipper, Sam, Hudson, and Mermando all moved to chase after her, but were frozen in place by a stare from Pacifica. Moving with deliberate grace, she waved her hand, instructing the boys to take care of Hudson.

In a swirl of blonde hair, Pacifica kicked herself up into the water and swam after Mabel, leaving a wash of frightened and confused faces behind her.


	23. Armory

Dipper sat in the corner with his legs crossed, staring at the Weslee that rested upon his knee. His lips were pursed tight, and his clenched fist pressed tight against the outside of his mask. Whenever he was deep in thought, he preferred to be gnawing on a pen—for some reason, distracting his body made it easier for his mind to process information.

However, the glass of his mask prevented him from touching his face, and he could feel waves of itchiness and heat pass across his skin before fading away. He wished more than anything that he could simply scratch his cheeks and rub his eyes, but to do that he would have to swim back to the crescent beach that Mermando had prepared for them. The urge to scratch wasn’t powerful enough to justify leaving his position in the armory.

The armory was located in the bottom of the palace, carefully guarded by a rotation of tiburónes. While there was nothing wrong with normal merfolk carrying around their own weapons, it made sense that Mermando would want to keep the more expensive, devastating arms under lock and key—especially the diamond spears and lances that were housed within an even more secure cabinet, located at some remove from the main hall.

The armory was essentially a long hallway with vaulted ceilings, the walls stretching up thirty feet over the heads of the prince and his guests. The walls were divided into sections that ran from the floor to the ceiling, each one of which was filled with a specific kind of arms or armor. Soldiers swam in dense layers overhead as they retrieved or replaced their equipment. There was also a small staff of caretakers who were constantly repairing and polishing any of the armor or weapons that came back damaged.

A three-dimensional mound of transparent, gelatinous goop sat on a small table at the short end of the hallway. Mermando and his scouts had taken meticulous care in carving the sculpture—it was a perfect representation of the seafloor around Pescadorado, and the tunnels and caverns around the city that had been explored.

Dipper wasn’t sure what the material actually was—it looked like it had been extracted from some animal, since it certainly wasn’t plastic. He crinkled his nose instinctively as Mermando swam around the table, examining the map from every angle as he worked to deduce the location of the vampires’ lair.

Or, rather, the lair of whatever mysterious creature was controlling the vampires. Hudson, who had recovered admirably over the course of the previous night, had been more than willing to help the prince in plotting out the path they would take to the possessor’s lair. After dehydrating the tuna he had been given, Hudson’s strength and memories began to return in equal measure.

Dipper’s head jerked to the side as he heard a sigh come from beside him, crackling through his headset at a low enough whisper that the other people in the room wouldn’t be able to hear it. The metal legs of a chair scraped against the stone floor as Sam dragged the seat next to the only other human in the room, straddling it backwards as he sat down next to the thoughtful Dipper.

“I’m worried,” Sam began, after a few moments of silence. Dipper’s eye twitched as he swiped to the next page of his notes on the Weslee, only now realizing how often he actually picked at his face.

“About what?” Dipper asked sarcastically. “The fact that we’re almost a mile underwater, the fact that we’re about to follow a merman into battle against an army of possessed vampires, or the fact that our only guide while we do so is a vampire himself who can barely remember the way to the monster’s lair?”

“All of the above,” Sam replied flatly. His hand reached up to pinch his brow, but ran into the glass of his mask as well. He shook his head as he returned his grip to the back of the rusting chair. “But, mostly about Mabel. And Pacifica, too.”

“Same here,” Dipper acknowledged with a sigh. “They didn’t come back to the beach at all last night, and it’s almost noon now. I thought Pacifica was going to go talk to Mabel, but I didn’t expect them to take this long.”

“Do you think we should go looking for them?” Sam whispered back. “Or at least tell Mermando about it? He could have his soldiers scour the city in minutes.” Dipper thought for a moment before replying.

“No, not yet,” he finally decided, grunting as he stood up. Sam stayed seated, but followed the other boy with his eyes. “No one in the city would dare to hurt them, and they’re more than capable of defending themselves. Besides, they both have their headsets on. Pacifica knows how to call us if she needs to.”

“I’m giving them until four,” Sam fired back as he stood up, looming a few inches over Dipper. “If they’re not back by then, I’m going to hunt for them myself.”

“And I’ll come with you,” Dipper replied with a whisper. “But right now, we need to work with Mermando and Hudson to figure out how we’re going to hunt down this body farm. If Pacifica comes back, and we don’t have a plan, I’m never going to hear the end of it.” A faint smile cracked across Sam’s lips as he nodded in confirmation.

Their strides matching, the two humans advanced to stand next to Hudson, who had anchored himself with his arms to the map table. Since he still looked like a normal person, it was odd to see him underwater with no mask, and seemingly none the worse for wear. Mermando hovered overhead, his sinuous, muscular tail rippling to stabilize himself as his scales shimmered in the dim light of the armory.

“Have you managed to come up with any plans, Dipper?” the prince ask, not taking his eyes away from the map. Hudson’s memory had started to return flashes of certain junctions and pathways within the networks of tunnels around the city, and the merman was working to figure out where all of those pieces fit to deduce a possible location for the farm.

“You’ve certainly sat over there long enough,” Hudson chuckled powerfully, playfully bumping into Dipper with his shoulder. Dipper staggered to the side, not expecting how much force was contained in the push.

Vampirism, along with the fact that the liquid in his lungs had dramatically increased his body weight, had increased Hudson’s strength immensely. In addition, he had cleaned himself up since his exorcism—his beard was now clean and hugged his face even more tightly than before, while the locks of his pitch black hair were bound backwards into a small bun—the newfound pale shine of his skin only made the contrast more vibrant.

“Well, plans take time,” Dipper laughed, trying to stay upbeat as he set the Weslee on the table. He was far more used to female company than male, especially with both Mabel and Pacifica making up the other members of their trio. Even back in school, he had never gotten acclimated to the locker room atmosphere—the scene in the armory reminded him very much of that indeed, minus the odor.

“Hopefully it’s a good one,” Mermando politely wished. “Based on the information Hudson here has given us, which has been a tremendous help, we’re starting to piece together where the body farm might be—my scouts have noted an increase in large cracks in the hard stone to the southeast. Perhaps one of them contains a thoroughfare to the other side of the tunnels.”

“Even if we do manage to find it, though,” Hudson cautioned, “we’ve got to have a plan to take out both the vampires and the… possessing entity. We really need to come up with a better name for it.”

“How about we just call it the ‘core?’” Dipper suggested, cocking his head to the side. “It’s not particularly original, but given that we don’t know much about it, I think it captures all of the essential features of what we’re looking for. It’s a glowing, warm orange thing in a central location that can affect things around it.”

“The core,” Hudson repeated, almost as though he was savoring the taste of the word in his mouth, placing a particularly guttural accent on the ‘o.’ “It’s nice to finally have a name to put to the thing that possessed me. Now I know what I need to fight.”

“Well, that and the vampires,” Mermando said, crossing his arms. He hovered upside down above the table and the three other men who stood around it, almost as though he was a vampire himself. “I know that you’re still a vampire, but the people who are under the influence of that thing aren’t our friends. We’re probably going to have to fight our way through some of them.”

“I know,” Hudson replied with a sigh after a moment of thought. “It’s just a shame. I know that if we took the core out, then everyone would calm down and stop the whole kidnapping and body farming thing. But, until that’s done, there are some sacrifices that need to be made.”

“Exactly,” Sam confirmed, an edge in his voice as his eyes danced between the prince suspended over him, and the vampire looming over the table next to them. If he was unable to voice his distaste for them, he would be more than happy to let a horde of vampires know, in no uncertainly violent terms. “But it is practically an entire army,” Sam continued. “We were able to take a squad of them down on the _Stan o’ War II,_ but that was only because Mermando helped us, and we had the element of surprise. If we directly attacked the core-slash-body farm-slash-nest, even with all of the tiburónes… I don’t know how things would go.”

“It’s going to take a lot more than soldiers,” Hudson murmured. “Like I said, I don’t remember that many details about what happened while I was… under the influence, but I remember how it felt. It was a warm sun, that you just wanted to get closer to and be a part of—but if you touched it, you would be burned to ash in an instant. But that same strength filled every part of your body—we vampires are strong already, but with the power of the possession adding onto that… well, you fought them.”

“And there are so many of them,” Mermando grimaced. “We’ve never encountered the same vampire twice. There always seems to be more of them. I’m not sure if their numbers keep growing, or if their army is simply that massive already… but either way, it’s not good.”

“Which means we’ll need to be smart,” Dipper instructed, tapping on the blank screen of the Weslee. “Let’s think about what we know—the vampirism and the possession by the core are different things. Which means, even if all of the vampires are possessed, they’ll still be weak to the things that vampires are traditionally vulnerable to.”

“Garlic?” Sam offered, lightly reaching out to touch the three-dimensional map and feeling the texture of the goo that rubbed off between his fingers.

“Wooden stakes?” Hudson followed up, shuddering as he said it. It was no different than a normal human discussing a gun, but the prospect of being so vulnerable to something so common was another thing about being a vampire that it was going to take him some time to adjust to.

“I have no idea what garlic is, and wood is more precious than diamonds down here,” Mermando replied, tapping his chin.

“I was thinking more along the lines of sunlight,” Dipper corrected, pointing towards the surface. “Grunkle Ford has developed a kind of lightbulb that emits light in the same wavelengths as the sun. It also makes your skin softer, but that’s not exactly what we need it for. If we can go back to the _Stan o’ War II_ and get those bulbs, we can attach them to spears and basically burn everyone away.”

“What about me?” Hudson asks, pointing at his chest defensively. “I’ll get toasted too.”

“Then stay out of the way,” Sam remarked snidely—to him, the answer had been obvious.

“We don’t even have to worry about that,” Mermando interjected with a sigh. “It’s a good idea, Dipper, but without electricity or some other kind of power, we’ll never be able to turn the lights on down here. Even if we were, there’s only so much one lightbulb can do against an entire cavern of dark water.”

“Don’t stress about the power, prince,” Dipper fired back with a smile, before a frown crossed his face. His attempt to be cool had fallen flat—he much preferred just being himself. “We can bring some waterproof battery packs down here,” he continued, shaking his head. “It won’t let us keep the lances on for long, but we’ll at least be able to get some good flashes. As far as amplifying the light, goes… that I’m not so sure about.”

“We could use metal… flashpans?” Sam suggested, struggling to find the right word. “Whatever those old timey things were to point the flash on a camera.”

“Not a bad idea,” Dipper acknowledged, pointing at Sam in praise. “But we’d have to find the right kind of metal, and make sure that it was polished really well. Also, that would just direct the sunlight beams in a set direction. If we have a limited number of flashes, I don’t know if we want bad aim to be a problem.”

“What about the diamond lances?” Mermando suggested, pointing down a small hallway towards the special case that held the exquisite weapons. “We use diamonds to amplify light down here all the time.”

“I thought we were going to use those to try and exorcise people,” Hudson queried, looking up at the prince, who was fishing around for a small key that hung on a leather loop around his waist. “It won’t be much good if we get there and have to sacrifice everyone who’s possessed to kill the core. Especially… Dr. Toyota.”

“Dr. Ford,” Sam grumbled under his breath as Mermando tossed the metallic key down to Dipper. “At least get the country of the car right.”

“That key is to the cabinet with the diamond lances,” Mermando instructed, not letting Sam’s disgruntled comment get in the way of planning for combat. “You can take one out and look it over. I think that it should work. We may need to have our smiths and jewelers alter the structure of the gems, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“I like this idea,” Dipper cheered as he turned towards the locked cabinet, which was nestled in a small offshoot from the main hall of the armory. “Not only is the idea of a sun spear cool, but I don’t think the diamonds would be very useful at exorcising people anyway. We’d all have to memorize the incantation, and keep contact with a vampire during the entirely of the process—probably not easy in the midst of a fight.”

“That’s fair,” Hudson acknowledged, waving his hand dismissively.

“Besides,” Sam interjected, his eyes lighting up with an idea. “Putting a lightbulb in the center of the diamond doesn’t alter the chemical carbon structure of the gem. We could still use it for exorcisms—maybe, if we were able to exorcise the core itself, we could end this whole thing early.”

“I volunteer,” Hudson immediately interjected. “We’re going to need a multi-pronged strike if we want to even get close to the core, but it’s only right that I’m the one to end this thing. After all, I’m the one who attacked the city first.” A glower of disapproval crossed Mermando’s face at the prospect of letting Hudson lead the mission back to the body farm.

“And Pacifica,” Sam scoffed in response to Hudson’s obsequious self-sacrifice. “Don’t forget that you almost tore her hair off. If you had done that, not even Mabel could have stopped her from ripping you in half.”

“If Mabel chose tear me in half, I would gladly let her do it,” Hudson chuckled, unable to determine whether Sam was joking or serious. “I owe her that much… I feel horrible for the way I checked out on her last summer.”

“You were a vampire,” Sam replied in a steely tone. “I advise that you take that excuse and run with it. If you don’t, you may find yourself in much more trouble than you’d like.”

“I deserve the trouble,” Hudson responded, eyes fixated on the three-dimensional map. He was intentionally not making eye contact with Sam, who was staring fixedly at the side of the vampire’s face. Mermando’s attention had switched from the map to the two men, trying to navigate the bubbling potential for conflict between them.

“For what?” Sam asked, his voice flat and uninviting. It was obvious that Sam didn’t particularly care whether Hudson responded or not—but, if he did, there would be no turning back.

“For… leading her on, and not following through, for lack of a better term,” Hudson replied coolly. “When she first gave me her number, I wasn’t sure how I felt about her. Heck, I’m not sure now. But, I at least know that she’s a person who I’d like to get to know a little better. And, from my end, the vampire thing doesn’t hurt.” He reached over to playfully elbow Sam in the ribs—unlike Dipper, who had been jostled by a similar motion minutes before, Sam didn’t flinch.

“Before you decide what to do, I advise that you figure out how you feel about her,” Mermando chastised from above, tapping into the princely authoritativeness of his voice. His signet ring flashed in the light of the armory, a shine of yellow gold amongst the cool blues and silvers of the water and weapons. “And take special care to remember by whose good graces you remain in this city. And whose soldiers are watching you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of hurting her, prince,” Hudson answered, bowing his head slightly. However, he still refused to look up at the royal merman hovering in the water over him, outclassing him in both power and experience. “It’s just… emotional. It takes time to figure out. I think I really like her, and I think she likes me, but I don’t really know where to go from here. If I asked her out properly, I think she’d say yes.”

Both Sam and Mermando looked at Hudson in disbelief—he seemed completely unaware of, or unwilling to pick up on, the fact that he was not the only contender in the ring for Mabel’s affections. While it was true that he had recently been possessed, and hadn’t known that either Mermando or Sam existed prior to emerging from his exorcism yesterday, the fact that Mabel had fled in a panic from his cell should have been more than enough to clue him in.

“Maybe we should stay focused on trying to figure out where the entrance to the body farm is,” Sam suggested, pointing back to the three-dimensional model of the cave system. “There’s plenty of time to talk about Mabel later, but right now, we have to find the location of the core before it launches another attack against the city or a boat, or decides to get rid of Ford. There’s a bit of a time crunch here.”

“I completely agree,” nodded Mermando, descending from his place in the water over the table to a mere foot above the sculpture. He was quite literally inserting himself into the dynamic between Sam and Hudson, providing another target for words and aggression in an attempt to decrease the pressure between them. “This isn’t just about Mabel, after all. There’s an entire city we need to worry about protecting.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” acknowledged Hudson, waving his hands in the air before resting them back on the metal table. “I got a little distracted. Where were we?”

“We were just discussing the possibility of the cracks to the southeast providing access to another area of the tunnels. Our scouts have reported increased seismic activity in the area, but none of the cracks that we’ve found so far seem large enough for a person to fit through,” Mermando explained, pointing to several sections of the model that were highlighted in purple.

“That’s because you’re thinking about what merfolk can fit through,” Hudson pointed out, unable to keep a satisfied grin from crossing his face. “You may be flexible like fish, but you’re big. You’ve got those long tails, and the muscles to match. But humans are smaller—and not only are vampires human-sized, but when they’re under the influence of the core, our joints get torn all out of whack. That lets us contort into very tiny spaces.”

“So you’re saying that it’s possible for the possessed vampires to fit through smaller gaps than we would have thought…” Mermando muttered, rubbing his faint mustache thoughtfully. “That would explain a lot. But that still leaves another problem—exactly how are we going to get through those cracks to chase after the core? We’re going to need more resources than we can carry on our backs, and I don’t exactly feel comfortable with sending you in there with just Pacifica, Dipper, Sam, and Mabel for company.”

“Ditto,” Sam echoed sharply, briefly locking eyes with the prince. The blonde boy may have resented the merman for his history with Mabel, but they at least appeared to be on the same side about Hudson.

“The cracks likely only appear in places where the surrounding stone is structurally weak,” Hudson offered. “If take a squadron of soldiers with picks and drills leads the way, or if you have specialized equipment, we could probably expand a tunnel just enough to get through.”

“Then it’s just a matter of finding the right tunnel to excavate,” Mermando nodded. “I’ll send my smallest scouts out on a reconnaissance mission to the located fractures this afternoon. They should be able to return in time for us to prepare for an assault tonight.”

“Tonight?” Sam asked in surprise. “I thought we would have a little more planning time than that. The girls aren’t even back yet, so they have no idea what we’ve put together here.”

“I’m sure both Pacificuh and Mabel will be completely on board,” Hudson replied, waving Sam’s concerns away.

“We’ll brief them once they return, Sam,” Mermando reassured the blonde boy. “In the meantime, we need to lay out all of the supplies that we’re going to need. That includes armor, weapons, battery packs and sun lightbulbs, as well as the diamond lances. It seems like it’s taking a long time for Dipper to get back with those.”

“He’s probably figuring out how to best attach the bulbs to the gems,” Sam answered. “Once he brings them, I’ll go with him back to the _Stan o’ War II_ to get all of the supplies we’ll need from up top—Pacifica asked for some scissors when we were heading back to the cells with you and Mabel. I’ll also bring a couple of additional masks in case we need one for Dr. Ford or one of ours breaks. Do you know if Mabel or the others have asked for anything else from up top?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Mermando responded, drifting back up towards the ceiling of the armory. The tension with Hudson had slightly dissipated, and the prince now felt more comfortable leaving the vampire and the blonde alone. “Hudson, what about you? Do you want anything from topside?”

“What?” Hudson started, coming back to reality after staring off into the distance in a daze. “Oh, no. I was just kind of surprised that Mabel and Pacificuh are comfortable enough letting a guy like you go through their stuff. Mostly Mabel.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam asked, more taken aback by the comment than anything that Hudson had previously said. The implication that Sam was a person who couldn’t be trusted, and would take advantage of rifling through a girl’s belongings, grated against not only his own moral sensibilities but also the ideal of the gentleman that he was raised to respect. “Frankly, and Hudson, I’m only going to say this once—whatever relationship I might happen to have with Mabel is none of your business.”

“Because there is a relationship, or because there isn’t one?” Hudson asked quickly, trying to keep his eyes blank to mask the intention behind them. He was clearly probing for details about anybody that Mabel might have had feelings for—Sam had been in enough business negotiations to read people’s true intentions.

“Because it’s none of your business, that’s why,” Sam retorted, his green eyes narrowing to mere slits. His pupils danced across the entirety of Hudson, who continued leaning over the three-dimensional model nonchalantly.

Sam knew that he had to pick his words carefully—after all, he was responding not just to Hudson, but to the prince who hovered in the water a few feet over their heads. At the same time, he didn’t want to invalidate his own uncertain feelings, or speak something into existence between himself and Mabel that was not yet truly there. The stock market rewarded risk, but that was simply money—in relationships, and especially with someone who mattered as much as Mabel did, he prized certainty and security above all.

“Besides,” Sam continued, “you can ask her yourself if you like. I’m sure she’d be glad to tell you exactly what she thinks. But don’t assume that you know what she’s feeling, or how her mind works. I’ve known her for longer than you have, and I still wouldn’t be that bold.”

“And how long is that?” Hudson replied, his voice losing some of its veneer of politeness and taking on a sharper edge. “You’ve texted for six months, and seen her for a week, is that right? Still not that long.”

“It’s longer than a vampire that slunk off into the ocean and left her behind without another word,” Sam fired back, glancing up at the HUD in his mask that showed his biometrics. His heart was racing, and his core body temperature was spiking.

“Gentlemen!” Mermando bellowed from above them, quickly spinning around in the water to where he was now right-side up, his sinuous and muscular tail floating in the water between them. From his previous position floating upside down, he hadn’t commanded the same princely authority that he did now. “Calm down. I know these are stressful times for us all, but we must work together to solve the vampire problem. After that, I don’t care what you do—but leave my city, my people, and Mabel out of it.”

Sam looked up at Mermando, expecting a sympathetic nod, since they had been on the same side against Hudson. However, the prince’s royal glare was turned against both of them equally.

“I’m sorry,” Hudson apologized with a smile on his face, shaking his head and causing the tight bun that held his hair to drift about in the current. “I know we should focus on the whole stopping the core and rescuing Mabel’s uncle thing, but it’s hard to keep my attention there. I’ve been through a lot, and the first thing I saw when I came out from under the control of that thing was Mabel—someone I never thought I’d see again. I guess my mind just latched onto her. She’s taking priority in my brain right now.”

“If she’s taking priority, then figuring out the location of the body farm and how to take down the vampires and the core ought to be your _top_ priority,” Sam rebuked. Despite Mermando’s threat, he was unable to stand idly by while Hudson disrespected both Mabel and their mission. “Because rescuing Dr. Ford is what she wants to do, and you should want to do what she wants to do. If you only want to think about her, then you’re not thinking _for_ her. You’re thinking for you.”

“I’m sorry,” Hudson apologized again, finally taking his eyes off of the three-dimensional model and meeting Sam’s gaze. This time, he seemed to be hiding behind the words more defensively, his shoulders squaring and muscles tensing. “To me, the body farm isn’t as important as Mabel is. I can’t help what I think is important.”

“You can,” Sam fired back, matter-of-factly. “That’s entirely within your power. And if you don’t think finding Dr. Ford is important, then you don’t think Mabel is important. That’s all there is to it.”

A harsh squeal echoed through the armory as Hudson clenched his fists. Under his immense vampiric strength, the metal within the table shuddered and buckled, leaving a perfect imprint of his powerful fingers in the surface.

“Who are you to tell me what I goddamn think?” Hudson snarled as he pushed the table away, sending it skidding across the stone floor with a horrific grating sound. “I’ve known you a day, but I’m already fed up with you thinking that you know what’s best. Not just best for you, but best for me, _and_ best for Mabel.”

Sam took a panicked step backwards as he threw up his hands in defense. He had been expecting Hudson to keep escalating the shouting match, but not to make things physical. Mermando’s tail, which had been separating them, had slowly drifted out of the way, leaving no barrier between the two men. Mermando watched with his mouth open, and the other tiburónes in the armory had frozen—if things escalated, they were ready to spring into action in defense of their prince.

As fit as Sam was from surfing, he knew that he was no match for Hudson. Sam was a regular human, with a tall slender frame and lean muscles. Hudson was shorter and stout, with a bulky power behind his movements even before the vampirism was accounted for.

“I… I…” Sam stammered. He could feel his anger bubbling beneath the surface, and knew that he desperately wanted to light into Hudson and tell him exactly what he thought. Despite that instinct, Sam knew he was in a delicate situation—being too violent or aggressive could jeopardize the mission to save Dr. Ford, but backing down would be akin to admitting surrender. He knew that Hudson was the kind of person who, once he had the initiative, would never surrender it.

"Hudson!” Mermando interjected, swooping down between the two combatants. He was now at eye level with them, though his long tail still gave him a dominating physical presence. The tiburónes gripped their weapons more tightly as the prince approached. “Back off. Sam’s in the right here. If you don’t recognize that Mabel wants us all to work together to rescue her uncle, then you clearly don’t have her best interests at heart.”

Sam felt his heart swell with joy at the prince siding with him. Even though Hudson could probably have beaten both of them, even if they fought together, he wouldn’t dare to challenge the prince when surrounded by the finest soldiers of Pescadorado. The golden-tailed mermaid, who had just entered the armory, would have relished the opportunity to spear the vampire again with her trident.

“You’ve already given us all the information we need,” Mermando continued, his voice steely. “We can figure out the way to the core ourselves. If you would like to continue to assist us, I advise that you get yourself under control, or we can throw you back into that cell.”

Hudson shrank back, unclenching his fists. His feet rubbed over the stone floor sheepishly, tracing over the marks that had been left when he shoved the model table across the room. He lowered his head, and nodded in agreement.

“Good,” Mermando decreed. “And that doesn’t just go for our rescue mission. Anything relating to Mabel, or any of our other guests, comes through me.”

“Gah!” Sam screamed, the prince’s final comment pushing him over the edge. Suddenly, his heart rate in the corner of his HUD flickered red. Sam had mustered all of his will to hold his tongue against Hudson, but Mermando had been grating against his nerves for far longer. With neither Dipper, nor Mabel, nor Pacifica there to check him, he could contain it no longer. “You’re just as bad as he is! Neither of you really care about Mabel, or what she wants!”

Mermando’s head snapped to glare at Sam, his eyes holding a combination of anger and astonishment. Hudson’s shameful gaze immediately hardened and fastened onto Sam as well, now irrevocably committed to the path he had chosen. A shifting and clanking of metal echoed throughout the armory as the other tiburónes affixed their attention to the blonde boy as well.

“Mermando, you’ve just been flexing your money and power ever since we got here, stealing Mabel away from us and trying to pressure her into… something. I don’t know what, but I know it’s something! And you, Hudson,” Sam snarled, affixing his gaze onto the vampire, who now met his stare with force and defiance. “You saw Mabel for maybe half an hour, and sent her screaming out of the room in a panic, and we still have no idea where she or Pacifica is! And, instead of worrying about where she might be or trying to track her down, you’ve been here trying to brag about how much you love her like a goddamn Shakespearean!”

“Sam!” Mermando bellowed, rising to his full height, towering almost four feet over the only human in the room. “How dare you? Not only to question my authority in my own city, but to question my feelings for my dear Mabel? I’ve known her for longer than either of you, and have never shown her nothing but the highest standard of chivalry and civility! If you have a problem with your own feelings, deal with them yourself.”

“Or I’ll deal with them for you,” Hudson growled, his voice shaking the water around Sam as he cracked his knuckles. “Come over here and I’ll crack your mask, and we’ll see who has a real problem then.” Then, as though unable to keep his newfound instincts in check, Hudson opened his mouth wide, baring his fangs and blood red lips, and hissed.

Sam stepped back and anchored one foot to the ground. He knew that he couldn’t flee from Mermando, and he couldn’t fight Hudson. His nervous system flared to life, adrenaline coursing through his veins as he struggled to formulate a plan. The spines on his gloves all extended themselves to their farthest and sharpest, preparing for whether he decided to run or to stand firm.

Before anyone was able to move, a resounding clang echoed through the armory, shaking the water even more than Hudson’s gravelly voice. Instantly, everyone refocused to the source of the sound.

Dipper stood at the entrance to the small hallway that held the cabinet of diamond spears. A cluster of the lances, bound in organic rope, was slung over his shoulder, while he wielded one of them in his right hand. As everyone watched, he lifted the spear into the air and slammed the metal butt back down onto the stone floor, sending another resonant peal throughout the room. Everyone was paralyzed with anticipation.

“Sam,” Dipper commanded, in a tone more mature and authoritative than anyone had ever heard come from him, much like the motherly tone Pacifica had employed when defending the Mystery Shack against the shapeshifter. “Outside, now.”

Sam nodded and, swallowing, immediately backpedaled out of the armory and into the streets of Pescadorado. Hudson and Mermando both followed him with their eyes, but neither dared to move.

“You two,” ordered Dipper, pointing his diamond spear at the vampire and the prince of the merfolk. “Get your act together. We’re fighting the core, and an army of possessed vampires. Not each other.”

Hudson and Mermando both looked down sheepishly. Hudson ran his feet over the few patches of grout in the stonework, while Mermando swayed his tail fins back and forth in the water.

“Besides,” Dipper continued as he walked towards the armory’s exit, preparing to ascend to the surface with Sam to meet the _Stan o’ War II._ “You’re all wrong. Any man who wants anything to do with Mabel goes through _me.”_


	24. Roof

Pacifica’s legs slowly swayed, stabilizing herself in the water next to the sunken Spanish galleon that sat in the courtyard of Mermando’s palace. She had one hand placed on the decaying mast, keeping steady as she slowly scanned the city, looking for any sign of Mabel.

She muttered nonsense syllables under her breath, her tongue tracing the gaps between her teeth as she tried to occupy her worrying mind. Much like Dipper, the inability to touch her face was beginning to chew on her nerves, an anxiety only worsened by the dramatic turn that things had taken over the past few hours.

When the _Stan o’ War II_ had been attacked, the prospect of a relaxing vacation immediately went out the window—the rescue of Ford became the top priority. But, even as she had donned the wetsuit and descended to the city of El Pescadorado with Mermando and his soldiers, things had never appeared particularly complicated.

The mission to find out where Ford had been taken was a straightforward one, even if it would have taken a lot of scouting and work. Beyond that, Pacifica had even been having a good time—walking the streets of the city with Dipper in hand, and savoring all of the special and unique flavors and sounds of the city had been magical. Almost getting run over by a tuna had been nothing more than a minor, colorful inconvenience.

Pacifica reached up and rubbed the back of her head, her scalp still painfully sore from where Hudson had lifted her off of the ground by her hair. She winced as she felt her fingers lace through the blonde strands, and quickly removed her hand. Several clumps of hair were caught in the small paddles on her gloves, pulled out easily due to the trauma her scalp had endured. She grimaced as she waved her hand in the water, casting the strands loose in the current. The prospect of having to do her hair for the Fourth of July Party to conceal the missing patches, minute as they were, was not promising.

Despite the pain it had caused her, she didn’t blame Hudson for lifting her entire body weight up by her hair. If anything, she was choosing to look on the bright side—if she hadn’t been surrounded by water when he did it, it would have hurt much, much more. She had been grabbed in a similar way aboard the _Stan o’ War II,_ after all, and Dipper had been vicious in rescuing her. Reaching back around to her hair, she could feel the rough cut where Dipper had cut her free from the vampire’s grasp.

Hudson had possessed no control over his actions when he assaulted her, and Pacifica was all too familiar with that sensation—of wanting to do otherwise, of knowing that you should do otherwise, but finding it impossible. Unless Hudson gave her a reason to lose her sympathy, he would have it. After all, once he had been freed from the influence of whatever power lurked and lurched behind that orange light, he had seemed to be entirely upstanding.

That was what made Mabel’s hasty, panicked retreat from his cell all the more confusing for Pacifica. Mabel wasn’t the type to run from her problems, even romantic ones, but something about Hudson’s unexpected appearance had broken her.

Pacifica had been sensing a rising tide of resentment and conflict as soon as Mermando had emerged from the water and kissed Mabel on the deck of the _Stan o’ War II._ Over the previous days, she had spoken intently with Mabel about her feelings for Sam, and the affection she felt for him was undeniable. But, over the years, Pacifica had also been regaled with tales about Mermando, and read the notes and seen the pictures that he had sent to Mabel in bottles. Mabel had saved all of his letters, meticulously conserving them in plastic covers within a specially decorated binder.

The conflict between Mermando and Sam had been inevitable, but the arrival of Hudson threw a wrench into the dynamic. Why Mabel ran from him, but not from Mermando and Sam, was a mystery Pacifica did not know the answer to. Previously, Mabel had shown no qualms about being the center of attention of multiple boys at the same time—her barely unchecked desire to imprison Sev’ral Timez was enough evidence of that.

Pacifica sighed again, kicking forward in the water as she spun around the mast of the ship. These were questions that only Mabel could answer, but she had no idea where the brunette had escaped to after she fled the prison cell. Pacifica had followed her almost immediately, but Mabel had completely vanished.

Glancing up at the clock in the corner of her mask, Pacifica could see that several hours had elapsed since Hudson had woken up and Mabel had run. By this time, the liberated vampire should have been taken to his new, heavily guarded quarters and fed. Dipper, Sam, and Mermando would have been all alone before they retired for the evening.

She felt mild indignation that none of them had chosen to leave the palace and join her in the search for Mabel, but she understood why they were hanging back. Her instructions to them had been pretty explicit, and they likely knew that they were at a complete loss to comprehend or understand what Mabel was going through. Even Pacifica, being a woman as well, wasn’t sure.

Other than a few false starts and several years of shamefully embarrassing flirting, Pacifica’s love life had been relatively straight forward. She was still young, of course, and knew that there was plenty of time in the future for things to get complicated, but she had never been able to deny her feelings for one boy, and only one. All she had had to do was figure out how to deal with them.

Some part of Pacifica was jealous at the fact that Mabel had multiple men falling head over heels to be with her—as popular as the blonde was, the attention she had commanded had always been more groveling respect than romantic. But, when she saw the emotional toll that it was taking on Mabel to process and understand the love she felt for each one of the boys, all different, but all real, she was extremely grateful that she had Dipper to hold onto.

After Mabel had fled, Pacifica had sped through the streets of the city in an attempt to find her, asking every merman and mermaid she came across if they had seen another human recently. Since there were only four people wearing masks in the entirety of the city, Mabel should have stuck out like a sore thumb.

But, after scouring every side of the spherical city, there was no sign of her. Methodically, Pacifica had then gone to every tunnel that allowed access into the city and spoken to the tiburónes who guarded the dissolving kelp nets—but, they too had seen no one leave.

In a last ditch effort, as the luminescent glow of the chemicals that illuminated the city started to dim into still and earnest night, she had swum into the center of the roundabout. Even in the early hours of the morning, it never stopped turning, and forcing her way through the wall of merfolk into the empty water of the center had been a challenge.

However, the roundabout’s core was as empty as ever. After confirming that Mabel wasn’t there, Pacifica had quickly fled back to the entrance to the palace. Without the guarding presences of Dipper, Mermando, and the tiburónes, the eyes that watched her from every angle were more unsettling than ever.

Pacifica had been searching for hours and, despite the assistance she was receiving from her gloves and flippers, was physically exhausted. She had settled down atop the mast of the sunken ship and simply rested, keeping her eyes open for any glimmer or sight of Mabel. The glow of the city was now almost completely extinguished—the merfolk likely would have been able to see in the limited ight, but the only way Pacifica was able to even see her hands was with the night-vision built into her mask.

It was getting late, and she had been completely unable to find Mabel. She was sure that Mabel would be safe—there was no one in the city, except for perhaps another vampire, who would dare to harm the prince’s most special guest. Her mask had enough power and algae to keep her breathing for days on end. However, just because Mabel would be safe didn’t mean that it was right to leave her out alone in the cold water.

Grunting, Pacifica planted her feet on the galleon’s top yard and kicked off into the water, rising up to the top of the palace, and the top of the city. The time had come to return to Mermando and the others, and enlist their help in the search for Mabel. As desperately as Pacifica had wanted to be able to find Mabel and talk to her one-on-one, that now appeared impossible.

The prince’s quarters and the sump in which Pacifica and the other humans lived were located near the top of the palace. Pacifica simply looked up, letting her momentum and the gentle effort of her flippers push her up towards the pointed and turreted roof of the castle.

It was then that, faintly, Pacifica heard a crackle over the headset in her ear. It was a quiet, indecipherable mumble, but it was clearly Mabel’s voice. Pacifica felt the tiredness drain from her limbs as she was filled with a renewed vigor—by default, the headsets worked by transmitting to other sets within a certain distance. If she could hear Mabel now, all she had to do was follow her voice to get closer.

Spinning in the water, Pacifica began to ascend more quickly, loose strands of her abused hair falling off in the current as she rose past the palace windows, the signal from Mabel’s headset becoming stronger and stronger with every passing foot.

“But he’s a guy, and he’s a _merman,_ and he’s a _vampire,”_ Mabel continued to whisper to herself, barely audible even as the transmission became clearer. “And they’re all really nice, and I really like all of them, but I like them in different ways… or is it the same way, with different pasts?”

Pacifica looked up in confusion, seeing that she was rapidly approaching the roof of the cavern. There weren’t that many places for Mabel to hide here. Slowing down as she passed the penultimate tower, Pacifica started to scan the water around her, looking for any sign of the brunette.

“But even if I do decide,” Mabel muttered, “what do I do then? How do I tell the others no? The last time I did that, the little white-haired gremlin almost killed Dipper. Surely these guys wouldn’t be that petty. Would they? Would they?”

Then, in the darkness, Pacifica spotted the faint glimmer of clear glass in the still and quiet water. She felt the impulse to rush towards Mabel with all the speed she could muster, but instead took a deep breath and approached more slowly. What mattered was that she was a friend.

Mabel had ascended to the highest tower on the palace, and was currently sitting on the stone-tiled roof. The gap between the masoned roof and the natural top of the cavern was no more than five feet—Mabel, curled up within the cave and concealed within her dark wetsuit, her head buried between her knees and her hands rapidly rushing over the surrounding stone, was practically invisible. Just below her was a balcony, evidently meant for royal proclamations. A thick layer of unkempt algae growth covered the balustrade. 

Pacifica closed her fists and clenched her toes, shutting off the miniscule paddles that helped to propel her through the water. Moving deliberately, she swam over to Mabel under her own power, making as little noise as possible as she approached. The only sound was the quiet burble of the ballast weights around Pacifica’s wrists and ankles, weighing her down and letting her sit, legs extended, next to Mabel on the isolated roof.

Mabel had gone silent, having noticed Pacifica’s approach long before the blonde sat down. She kept her face buried between her knees, invisible to her new companion. Still, she didn’t budge or make a move to run. Whether she was still because she was exhausted, knew that she couldn’t escape, or genuinely wanted the companionship was a mystery—but Pacifica didn’t much care, so long as Mabel was there.

Pacifica opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again. She couldn’t think of anything to say, and had no idea how to breach the conversation that needed to be had. Mabel had helped counsel Pacifica about her relationship with Dipper before, and Pacifica had done her best to return the favor as Mabel realized her feelings for Sam, but the challenge they now faced was completely new. It was one thing to decide to pursue someone when you already knew you liked them—it was quite another to choose between multiple people.

Instead of speaking, then, Pacifica, simply reached out her hand and placed it on Mabel’s hair. Mabel started, and exhaled in a sharp burst between a sob and shock, but didn’t move. Slowly, Pacifica stroked Mabel’s hair, bringing it back under control. Mabel’s ponytail tie was wrapped around her wrist, and her long, milk chocolate locks had swollen outwards into a huge, anemone-like bubble, as though she had been struck by lightning.

“It is a beautiful city, isn’t it?” Pacifica asked quietly, not wanting her voice to overwhelm the girl next to her. Mabel shifted beneath her touch, allowing Pacifica to scratch her head. Mabel’s head tilted closer to the blonde.

Pacifica didn’t say anything else, giving Mabel the chance to respond on her own terms. After a couple of minutes of quiet, with no sounds except the gentle rise and fall of her breathing over their headsets, Mabel finally lifted her head from her knees, and looked out at the city of Pescadorado laid out before her.

The city, in the dead of night, looked much different than it had when they had first descended from the surface the previous morning. The dim, almost nonexistent, lighting gave everything a green tinge of amber rust and seeming decay. The strands of algae that grew off of many of the buildings seemed larger, and more prominent. Though the roundabout in the center of the city still swirled, there were much fewer merfolk within it, and it was now possible to see from one side to the other.

The rest of the city, from the market street below them to the restaurant district above, appeared abandoned. Most of the merfolk had returned to their homes and were sleeping quietly. Since there was no electricity within the city, the buildings loomed dark, stoic and staid through the indigo water. The structures looked empty, as though it was a human city that had long since been swallowed by the sea. The vague, threatening silhouettes of the taller buildings stood silent guard, as cold and isolated as the rusting bow of the Titanic.

“It’s not real,” Mabel finally responded, swallowing and trying to control her breathing. “None of it’s real.”

Pacifica turned to gaze at Mabel’s face, whose welling eyes took in the isolated cityscape with much more resentment than wonder. She felt pity welling up in her heart, but knew that she could do nothing now but talk.

When Mabel had been sick in the airport restroom, or ruined her makeup before dinner with the Southeasts, Pacifica had been able to directly solve the problems—either by purchasing nausea medicine, or cleaning her face. But now, when Pacifica couldn’t reach out to touch her, she could do nothing but take in the sight of Mabel’s face—eyes shot bloody red from crying, and currents of salt coursing down her cheeks. Since not even Mabel herself could wipe them away, the rivers of her tears had simply dried on her skin unchecked.

“I’m sorry,” Pacifica murmured gently, continuing to stroke Mabel’s hair and occasionally scratch her scalp, “but I don’t know what you mean. The city seems like it’s real enough for the people who live here.”

“Exactly,” Mabel responded with a weak smile, though she was unable to sustain the effort and the corners of her lips soon fell again. “It’s real for them, but not for me. It could never be real for me.”

“This hair tie I got is real,” Pacifica replied, pointing at the multicolored band that kept her hair bound into place, and prevented more of it from tumbling out. “The food we ate was real, and really good. The palace is real, and the sandy beach we slept on is real.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Mabel responded, tucking her masked face back between her knees. Pacifica, lips pursed in a slight pout, scooted closer to her, feeling the soft give of her thighs as they met.

“Why don’t you tell me what you mean, then?” Pacifica asked, her voice gentle and polite. “I know I’m smarter than you and Dipper combined, but I still can’t read minds.”

“Has McGucket not perfected a mind-reading device yet?” Mabel smirked, trying to go for a joke.

“Not quite,” Pacifica laughed lightly. “I think he swore off of altering people’s minds after the memory-gun incident.”

“God, I wish I had that memory gun right now,” Mabel whispered, unable to keep a slight chuckle from escaping her lips. “It would make things _so_ much easier.”

“Why would you want that, Mabel?” Pacifica asked, her own eyebrows raising at the tone of her voice. “It doesn’t seem like a very healthy way of solving problems.”

When the shapeshifter had been trying to sneak into the Mystery Shack in the guise of Wendy, Pacifica had told Dipper very explicitly where he could and couldn’t go with the redhead. At the time, everyone had been astonished at how commanding she had sounded, and Pacifica herself had been surprised that she had such a powerful voice within her.

The voice she was using to talk to Mabel now was different, but the same. It was soft, warm, and giving, ready to accept anything and everything Mabel told her with unconditional love and respect. It was the voice of a mother—not scolding her children for misbehaving as before, but instead welcoming them back from playing outside for a homecooked dinner and reading before an exhilaratingly late bedtime.

“I know,” Mabel responded, jolting Pacifica back to reality. Pacifica inhaled sharply, making sure that her mask was still sealed tightly around her face. For a moment, she had forgotten she was underwater. “I almost made the mistake of using it on myself once before. But even now, the idea of just… forgetting my problems is really tempting.”

“What problems would you like to forget?” Pacifica replied, leaning more of her own weight against Mabel’s shoulder. Mabel responded in kind, resting against Pacifica and forming a much more stable pyramid than either of them could have made on their own.

“There are three problems,” Mabel said, inhaling sharply before embarking on the conversation in earnest. “And I would like to forget two of them. Which two… that, I don’t know.”

“Ah,” Pacifica answered, having already known full well the problems weighing on Mabel’s heart. But, allowing Mabel to broach the topic naturally made the conversation much more comfortable. “Allow me to venture a guess, but are these problems named Mermando, Hudson, and Sam?”

“Is it that obvious?” Mabel asked, more embarrassed than defensive.

“Well, it wasn’t hard for me to put the pieces together,” Pacifica replied with a laugh. “After all, I was there when you gave Hudson your number, you told me directly about Sam, and you’ve shown me your binder full of Mermando’s letters and pictures. And he also kissed you.”

“Oh, well,” Mabel nodded, shaking her head. A new tear began to trace a path down her cheeks, and she lifted her hand instinctively to wipe it away, but found herself bumping up against the glass of her mask with a dull thunk. “I guess, when you put it like that, it is kind of obvious.”

“To me, at least,” Pacifica sympathized. “Between you and me, I don’t think any of the guys are smart enough to figure it out on their own. I know for sure that Dipper isn’t.”

“Hey, they’re all smart,” Mabel fired back, rising to their defense. Pacifica blinked slightly, surprised to see Mabel fighting on all of their behalfs at once.

“Fair enough,” Pacifica acknowledged, bowing her head. “I don’t think that they’re emotionally literate enough to figure it out. And I _really_ know that Dipper isn’t.”

“That’s better, at least,” Mabel replied, mirroring Pacifica’s nod. “I’m fine with you bad-mouthing Dipper, of course. You’re his girlfriend; you have the right to do that.”

“I may have the right, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing for me to go around doing,” Pacifica pointed out. “He’s gotten better about a lot of things, and it’s not nice for me to mock him for things that I know he’s working on. Like being more open to emotions.”

“His emotions or yours?” Mabel asked, her voice flat. The question caught Pacifica off-guard. It could have been construed aggressively, but she knew that Mabel hadn’t meant it like that. The brunette was simply so emotionally exhausted that she wasn’t wrapping everything she said in the usual layer of bubbly politeness. Pacifica doubted that she would have said it if they had been looking at each other, instead of gazing out at the empty city, cold and serene.

“Both,” Pacifica replied earnestly. “That way I can understand him better and help him solve his problems, and he can do the same with me. Or, anyone else that comes to him for advice.”

“Yeah, well…” Mabel murmured. “He’s at least getting better at that. That last night at the Southeast Estate, when we were out on the walkway above the marsh… it’s been a while since I’ve been that open with him about my feelings. It felt good.”

“Things change as you get older,” Pacifica acknowledged. “Sometimes, it feels like some topics become off-limits. It’s good to check in every once in a while, especially during times like this. What did you tell him; if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Ask away,” Mabel laughed. “I know Dipper’s my brother, but it’s easier to talk about a lot of these things with you. You understand.”

“Women’s intuition,” Pacifica replied, her lips curling up into a smile. “Now come on, spill.” She playfully poked Mabel in the ribs, causing her to giggle before batting Pacifica’s hand away. The last tear was just drying on her cheek, and it didn’t seem as though there would be many more.

“I basically told him… this,” Mabel answered with a sigh, gesturing at the water around her with an open sweep of her arms. Pacifica quickly lurched back to keep Mabel from hitting her mask, but soon returned to a sitting position.

“You knew we were going to find a long-forgotten merfolk city and have to rescue Ford from a horde of possessed vampires?” Pacifica joked. “No offense, Mabel, but that’s really the kind of thing you should have told us beforehand.”

“No,” Mabel responded, rolling her eyes and sighing. “I mean everything with Sam and Hudson and Mermando. It’s all so, so complicated... and I have no idea what to do.”

“Hmm,” Pacifica nodded, seeing the worry, confusion, and stress in the lines bunching up around Mabel’s eyes. “I know we talked about Sam, and I thought we had decided that it would be a good idea for you to see where that relationship might go. Mermando and Hudson were unexpected, yes… but I know you like Sam. I can see it in your eyes, and hear it in the way you talk about him.”

“That’s exactly the problem, though!” Mabel grumbled, lifting her fists and rapidly beating them against her mask. “I do like Sam! And I like Mermando, and I like Hudson! I like all of them at the same time, and that’s what I told Dipper I was so worried about. Since I like all of them, what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Pick one,” Pacifica shrugged as she raised an eyebrow, failing to see what the problem was. Mabel’s head shot up, and her bloodshot eyes fixed on Pacifica with a daggerlike stare. “Sorry!” Pacifica quickly apologizing, realizing that she hadn’t accounted for how difficult a decision this was for Mabel—telling her to pick one was like telling someone with insomnia to simply go to sleep. “I spoke too soon. Why don’t you tell me more about why exactly you’re worried about this.”

“It’s not just that I can’t pick one,” Mabel continued, swiveling her neck and resting her chin on her knees. Now, at least, she was looking out towards the city instead of hiding her face. “It’s that even if I do pick one, I know that the feelings I have for the others aren’t just going to go away. No matter who I choose to date, I’ll be loving multiple people at the same time… and I don’t know how I could handle that. What if it’s too much, and I decide that I like the person I didn’t pick more? I don’t want to wind up bouncing from guy to guy, and I definitely don’t want to break any hearts… maybe I’m just not ready for a relationship right now.”

“So the problem is that your heart’s too big,” Pacifica replied, trying to put a positive spin on Mabel’s concern. She was more than a little surprised that this was the thing holding Mabel back—in all the conversations she had had with Mabel about relationships, this particular anxiety had never come through quite so explicitly.

“Not quite,” answered Mabel, rocking her head from side to side as she tried to figure out another way to explain her inner turmoil. “If I were to sum it up to one thing, it would be that I’m worried about cheating.”

“Cheating?” Pacifica asked in shock. “Mabel, you’re one of the most morally upstanding people I know. You were back when you fought those unicorns, and you’ve only gotten better over the years since then. You wouldn’t hurt anyone like that even if you had a gun to your head. If you did grow apart with someone, you would at least have the decency to give them an honest breakup.”

“But you don’t know that!” Mabel fired back sharply. “None of us know that, because it’s never been tested! I may be nice, but I know I have self-control problems. You know it, and Dipper knows it, and everyone knows it, and _I_ know it!” By the time she had finished speaking, Mabel was practically shouting, in anger at herself and at the world, causing feedback to squeal into Pacifica’s headset. After she grew quiet, her face plopped back down against her knees.

“Mabel,” Pacifica chastised, in as good-natured and helpful of a tone as she could manage. “Self-control isn’t the problem here. Sure, you may have a little difficulty if you have an industrial sized tub of sprinkles, but that’s entirely different than when you deal with people.

“In the past, sure, you weren’t the best. With Gabe and Sev’ral Timez, especially, but you haven’t done anything like that since. Because you learned, because you’re capable of learning, because you’re a good person at heart and want to try to be a better one. Not just for yourself, but for the people around you.

“That’s the Mabel I know,” Pacifica continued. “The Mabel that helped rally a town to save the world. The Mabel that fixed my sweater so I can still wear it, even though I’ve grown. The Mabel that, as part of her birthday present, helped Dipper and I finally get over ourselves and tell each other how we felt. The Mabel that isn’t just my boyfriend’s sister, she’s _my_ sister.”

For a moment, the connection over their headsets died out. Then, before Pacifica could even react, she felt herself being squeezed as Mabel wrapped her arms around her, pulling the blonde into a tight hug. After a moment of uncertainty, Pacifica returned the hug, squeezing Mabel’s slight frame against her. Even through the multiple layers of their wetsuits, Pacifica could feel Mabel’s heart, previously pounding with worry, beginning to slow down.

“All those private school literature classes make you really good at giving speeches,” Mabel mumbled, causing Pacifica to laugh. With newfound relief, they pulled apart, reclining easily against both the roof and each other.

“And stitching up your dumb brother’s battle wounds,” Pacifica added, thinking about how Dipper had been freshly injured every time that they had been together over the past year, and how she had been the one to care for him. Her brow furrowed as she thought about the wounds left on his forearms by the vampire attack—it was probably past time to air those out. But, there would time to tend to him later.

“That too,” Mabel acknowledged with a sigh, before taking a deep breath and returning to the topic at hand. “Thank you for coming up here and sitting with me. I shouldn’t have run away, but… this is a lot to deal with. I just want something like what you and Dipper have.”

“Then let’s be productive and think about how you can get that,” Pacifica offered, reaching back out to pat down Mabel’s hair, which had begun to frizz up again. “We just need to try and figure out which one of your many viable suitors is most like Dipper.”

“What a disgusting thing to say,” Mabel laughed, knowing full well that Pacifica had intended no innuendo. “That’s the last thing I want. Not only is he my brother, he’s also a huge dork.”

“You’re right,” Pacifica admitted, grimacing at her own words and filled with sensations of disgust and jealousy. “That’s not productive. Let’s think about which one of them would let you have a _relationship_ most like mine and Dipper’s.”

“That’s better,” Mabel nodded. “Even if it does feel a little weird to be, like… discussing and comparing people like they’re horses or dogs or art or something.”

“I promise that guys do it all the time,” Pacifica laughed. “If they can be gross, then we can be gross.”

“You’re right!” recognized Mabel, perking up with new enthusiasm. “Dipper has Soos and Ford, I can have you.”

“Exactly,” Pacifica winked. “So, I propose that we start with the… easy one, so to speak.”

“The easy one?” Mabel asked, cocking her head to the side. “Who’s the easy one?”

“Hudson,” Pacifica suggested, trying to keep the tone of her voice suitably sad.

“Hudson!” Mabel exclaimed in shock. “What makes him the easy one to get rid of? He’s got the beard, and the dark hair, and the voice that shakes your bones and every other part of you, and he’s a vampire. A _vampire,_ Pacifica!”

“Mabel,” Pacifica began, tapping into her motherly voice. She suddenly got the impression that she was a housewife from the 1950’s, telling her daughter why the boy with the leather jacket and motorcycle wasn’t a good pick for the senior prom. “Yes, everything that you’ve said is true. I myself really like the beard. It wouldn’t work on Dipper, but I can appreciate it for what it is. But, just because he’s a vampire doesn’t mean that we should overlook everything else that he’s done.”

“He had no control over himself when he was possessed,” Mabel adamantly explained. “I’m sure that if you talked to him, he would be very sorry that he ever attacked you.”

“That’s not it,” Pacifica replied, shaking her head. “I know that wasn’t his fault. I misspoke—it’s not so much what he’s done, but what he hasn’t.”

Mabel grew still as Pacifica spoke, inviting her to continue talking.

“He was a vampire when he served us lunch in Yachats,” Pacifica carried on. “Even if he was in denial about it then, he certainly wasn’t in denial when he started to travel across the country to come live in this underwater vampire coven. And he didn’t tell you about it at all.”

“He had some major life stuff going on,” Mabel defended, though it was clear that she was losing steam.

“He did,” Pacifica nodded. “But that’s no excuse. If he wanted you in his life in the way that you want him to be in yours, he would have let you know about the major life stuff. He would have invited you in so you could talk about it, and solve the problem together, step by step. But he didn’t, and now that major life stuff has resulted in Ford being kidnapped, us conducting an impromptu exorcism with a diamond spear, and my hair falling out.”

As she spoke, Pacifica ran the fingers of her right hand through her blonde locks again, pulling out yet more strands that Hudson had torn loose during his attack. Fewer hairs fell out than before—even if her scalp would be slightly thinner, she was still at no risk of going bald.

Mabel, moving quickly, snatched the golden strands from where they floated in the water and started to braid them together. Pacifica felt her upper lip raising in confusion and disgust, but decided to let Mabel carry on. It gave her something to do with her hands, and something to distract her from the pressure of the conversation they were having.

“I guess I have only seen him twice,” Mabel finally admitted after a minute of silence. “Back then at the Luna Sea Fish House, and just now when we saved him from being possessed. The rest has been just over text.”

“You’re right,” Pacifica echoed, having not even thought about the length of time Mabel and Hudson had actually been in contact with each other. “And it seems a little bit hasty to throw out your chances with two guys who you’ve known a lot longer for one who you don’t really even know if you have chemistry with.”

“And I do like the sun,” Mabel nodded. “If I chose to be with Hudson, he would have to turn me into a vampire, and then I could never go to the beach again.”

“Not during the day, at least,” shrugged Pacifica. “I guess you could go to the beach at night, but that’s not exactly the same. It’s a lot scarier.”

“Yeah,” Mabel chuckled, before shuddering. The beach at night, with the endless roiling waves stretching off into the abyssal distance, was frightening even with sand between your toes. “It’s kind of ironic that we’re talking about that in a city half a mile underwater.”

“It is,” Pacifica acknowledged. “Speaking of which, we should probably talk about Mermando.”

Mabel slumped over at her words. Pacifica had been right about Hudson being the easy one to discard—though he had his charms, when it came to a long-term relationship built on trust, he just wasn’t a strong candidate. Mermando and Sam, however, each held a special and tender place in Mabel’s heart.

“And Sam,” Mabel suggested. “We should compare them together. That way we can look at them side by side.”

“Fair enough,” Pacifica conceded. “So, let’s start with Sam. What do you like about him?”

“I like… the way he pet Waddles as soon as he saw him,” answered Mabel, a soft smile teasing at the edge of her lips. “And the way Waddles trusted him. And the fact that he has a dog named Cornbread.”

“You haven’t even met Cornbread,” Pacifica chuckled, rolling her eyes.

“I know,” Mabel shrugged. “But I already love her.”

“She is a cute dog,” Pacifica admitted. She had seen Cornbread in person—and, even amongst all of the Southeast’s dogs, Cornbread was easily the most adorable. “But liking Sam’s dog isn’t the same as liking Sam. A lot of people make that mistake these days.”

“Then… I like the way he sings,” Mabel continued, gazing out at the sleeping city. Pacifica slightly turned her head, so she could watch the shine in Mabel’s eyes as she talked about Sam. “And how he plays the ukulele. And I like how he taught me how to sing better, even though he didn’t have to.”

“He taught you how to sing?” Pacifica asked in astonishment. “When did that happen?”

“The night before the vampire attack,” Mabel answered, making no effort to conceal her smile. “I got a snack from the kitchen, and I heard him singing in the wheelhouse, and it was…” Mabel trailed off, unable to find the word she was searching for.

“I know it wasn’t angelic,” Pacifica laughed. “I’ve heard Sam sing before, and it’s good, but it’s not _that_ good.”

“No, not angelic,” Mabel acknowledged. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was _him._ And he wasn’t ashamed of anyone hearing his voice for what it was.”

“Neither are you,” pointed out Pacifica. “You’ve never shied away from singing. Though, I have to admit that I’m looking forward to hearing your newfound choral ability the next time we go on a road trip.” Mabel playfully lurched to the right, bumping into Pacifica and causing the blonde to laugh and place her hand on the floor to hold steady.

“I’ll find a nice opera to rehearse,” Mabel remarked sarcastically.

“Something fun. Mozart, maybe,” Pacifica offered in a light tone, before returning to the important conversation. Even though it was a friendly discussion, she could sense that both Mabel and she were trying to break away from the serious topics and into their usual joking banter. “But, that was just the first part. Now, what do you like about Mermando?”

The pause now was slightly longer as Mabel thought through her answer. She could appreciate both Sam and Mermando equally, but she needed a moment to switch from thinking about one to the other.

“He’s always been nice to me,” Mabel finally began. “Back in the pool that first summer, even when he really wanted to get back to his family, he knew how much I cared about him. And, now that I’ve seen him again, he’s done everything he can think of to show me how much he cares back.”

“What all has he done?” Pacifica asked, genuinely curious. “We got down here, and then he stole you away from us. We only met back up once Hudson attacked, so we haven’t had a chance to catch up.”

“Oh, so much!” Mabel enthused, the smile on her face now no less genuine than it had been when discussing Sam. “We went on a walk through the palace gardens, and then he took me for a ride on his shark Rory. Then, we went and got dinner… that was when Hudson showed up.”

“Wait a second,” Pacifica interjected, raising a finger. “You said Mermando has a shark? And he named it Rory?”

“Yeah!” answered Mabel. “It’s a tiger shark, and it’s like… three times bigger than Sam or Dipper. And isn’t Rory a cute name?”

“Not as cute as Cornbread, if you ask me,” Pacifica replied honestly, causing the hopeful expression on Mabel’s face to flicker. “What else do you like about Mermando?”

“Don’t even get me started on his body,” Mabel continued, blushing at the thought of talking about Mermando’s physique, before resolutely barreling on. “The abs, the hair, the Spanish accent, the biceps, the cute little gap in his teeth, the tail. Pacifica, the tail.”

“He does have a tail,” Pacifica acknowledged. The blonde also did her best to conceal a grimace—she was unsure what exactly Mabel found attractive about the tail, since Pacifica felt no such flutter in her heart. Then again, merfolk had supposedly been luring sailors below the waterline for centuries, so her attraction was nothing new. “As far as fish tails go, I guess it’s not half bad.”

“I really like the way it changes his silhouette…” Mabel whispered to herself. “From the top down, you just think it’s a really attractive guy, but then you get to the waist and the hips and BAM, he’s a giant, powerful merman who also happens to be a prince.” Inside her mask, Mabel lightly bit her lower lip, savoring the sensation of her teeth scraping over the soft skin.

“Keep it together, Mabel,” Pacifica cautioned, rolling her eyes. She knew she couldn’t fault Mabel too much, however—she had done the same thing around Dipper many times. “That was the fun part of this. Now, tell me what you don’t like about each of them.”

“Sam and Mermando?” Mabel asked, though she had heard Pacifica perfectly well. “I… don’t really know of anything I don’t like about them. I’m sure if I thought hard enough about it I could find something, but nothing is really standing out. I guess Sam has been a little bit jealous and sulky since Mermando showed up… and Mermando’s been a little bit more aggressive than I would like, right now at least, but those aren’t deal breakers.”

“Trust me,” Pacifica snorted. “You spend enough time around Sam, and you’ll find something to dislike. With all the vacations we took together as kids, I guarantee it won’t take long. But the same is true of Mermando as well, and it’s really true of anyone. Dipper, for instance—it’s easy for him to get too absorbed in his work. I’m sure he finds something annoying about me too.”

“He does,” Mabel responded sharply.

“Wait, what is it?” Pacifica asked, wondering what her boyfriend had been discussing with his sister behind her back.

“I thought you were helping me with my relationship problems,” Mabel snickered. “We can deal with you and the dipstick later.”

“You’re right,” Pacifica acknowledged, throwing up her hands. “You’re right. I believe we were talking about you not having anything to dislike about either of them.”

“Yeah,” Mabel confirmed. There was silence for a moment, before she buried her face in between her knees yet again. “Gah, Pacifica, what am I supposed to do here?” she asked plaintively. “I really like both of them—I love both of them—but, if there’s nothing negative to break the tie, then how am I supposed to decide?”

“What is your gut telling you?” Pacifica asked tenderly. “Going with your gut may not be the best idea, but it can at least give us a starting point. A little more information.”

“When I just think about the two of them, Mermando and Sam,” Mabel began, glancing up at the nearby ceiling of the cavern in an attempt to focus her thoughts, “I’m leaning towards Mermando. Just the fact that he is a merman, and Sam is just a guy… it’s exotic, and I like it. And I’m not really ashamed of liking it. But, then I think about this city, and it all seems like just too much.”

“It is a lot to take in,” Pacifica acknowledged, looking out at the skyline—or waterline—of El Pescadorado. The swirling movement of the roundabout in the center of the city had slowed even further, making it seem even more as though this was a place where humans were simply not meant to be. “For people who breathe air, especially.”

“How did you decide on Dipper?” Mabel asked unprompted, turning towards Pacifica with hopeful eyes. “You’ve got a good relationship. What was it about Dipper that made him the right choice? Because personally, as his sister, I can’t see it.”

Pacifica thought for a moment—she was still confident that she loved Dipper, and that he had been the right choice for her, but she hadn’t been expecting the questioning to turn around on her so abruptly. She needed a moment to gather her thoughts.

“Dipper…” she began tentatively. “Dipper was an easy choice. Before him, there was that one kid from private school, but I just… didn’t like who I was with him. I thought about the future, and who I would be in ten years if I had kept dating him. And then I thought about who I would be with Dipper, with someone who challenged me to keep becoming a better person, to keep my negative impulses in check… I thought about who I would be with Dipper, and I saw a future.”

As Pacifica’s voice died out in the crackle of their connection, swallowed by silence and the sea, neither of the girls moved. Mabel simply looked at Pacifica’s face, trying to see if there were any cracks in the blonde’s earnest and honest answer. Pacifica, who had spoken truly, didn’t flinch.

“So,” Pacifica continued tentatively. “I guess, if you want to find a relationship like what I and Dipper have, you need to think about which person you have a potential future with. A real, potential future.”

Mabel shifted, turning away from Pacifica’s face to sit up and face the sleeping city. She was sitting more confidently and proudly than she had at any point in the conversation.

“A future,” Mabel finally began. “Years spent with this person. Years… if I chose to come down here, I would be a princess. Eventually, I would be an actual _queen._ If I stayed on land with Sam… I would be a Southeast—hypothetically, at least. It would mean dinner parties in high society, and spending time with his family. His awful, awful family.”

“Dipper spends plenty of time with my awful family,” Pacifica rightly pointed out. “They haven’t scared him off yet, even though they’ve really tried.” Then, after a moment’s pause, she continued. “But, if I’m being honest, that’s not really what I meant by ‘future.’ Your future with a person you love isn’t just the life you get because of _what_ they are. That’s not important. It’s the life you live together because of _who_ they are. It’s how they show you the things you don’t like about yourself, and how they work with you to make them better. It’s cooking dinner together, and making the bed. Grocery shopping. Eventually, if you want, it could be—”

“Kids?” Mabel interjected, with a sly yet tired smirk.

“Kids,” Pacifica confirmed with a swallow. If she followed that train of thought for too long, she would start to ask questions of herself that she didn’t rightly know the answers to—but, it needed to be brought up now, at least briefly. “I don’t even know if you want any, or if you’ve thought about it at all… but it is a thing to consider.”

Mabel tapped her fingers on the stone tiling of the palace roof, lightly biting her tongue as she continued to stare out at the city. Pacifica sat next to her quietly, not knowing what the brunette was thinking, but not wanting to interfere with the wheels turning in her head. The tune Mabel was playing against the rock was sharp and staccato, but soon slowed into a steady, constant beat.

“When I said this place wasn’t real earlier, I think that was what I meant,” Mabel began, causing Pacifica to look at her in surprise. “I didn’t know how to say it, but that was what I meant. This place is real enough for the people who live here, but it could never be real for me. I could never walk down these streets, share a normal lunch, or talk to these people as an equal. I would always be someone else.”

“I don’t think I would want to be queen of this place anyway,” Pacifica murmured. “That’s way too much responsibility.”

“I do like the freedom to do whatever I like,” Mabel acknowledged with a chuckle. “If I was queen, I don’t think I’d be able to keep going with my art. I wouldn’t be able to spend more time with you and Dipper. Or Stan. Or Ford. Or Soos. Or Melody. Or Tyrone-slash-Gladys, who should be here at any moment. Or my actual parents.”

“Your parents would probably have something to say about it,” laughed Pacifica. “At least with Sam, you stand a chance.”

“And with Sam, there’s a chance for… actual other things as well,” Mabel began, before trailing off. “Mermando’s a really good person, and a really sexy merman, but some things just could never work between us. Things wouldn’t… fit. Sam may not have a tail, but he is a guy. Just a guy, and that’s enough.” Pacifica was unable to keep a smile from cracking her face at Mabel’s intense blush. “Of course, that’s a long way down the line. A long way.”

“Of course,” Pacifica nodded in deference. “If it’s anything like Dipper and I, I expect there to be at least two years of you staring at each other from across a room before you even think about holding hands.”

“Well…” Mabel giggled with a grin. “I don’t know if I’m that patient.”

“I’m sure you’ll have an opportunity to discuss it with Sam,” Pacifica suggested. Then, taking her hands off of the roof, Pacifica leaned back and reclined entirely against the stone shingles, extending her arms to her sides. She lay on her back with her eyes closed, taking deep breaths as she felt the slow and meek currents of the water around her. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m… going to be honest,” Mabel answered, lifting her hands from their place tapping the roof and interlacing her fingers. “That’s all I can be. I know that neither Hudson nor Mermando are going to like it, but… it’s best they know the truth. And that Sam knows the truth.”

Pacifica nodded her head subtly, proud at Mabel’s decision, but didn’t say anything. All of the tension that had been building seemed to have dissipated, at least somewhat. There was still more work to be done—rescuing Ford would take place tomorrow, and the actual conversations with Mermando and Hudson were yet to be had. But now that Mabel had a clear direction in which to work, Pacifica was breathing a little easier. Even her scalp, which had been tingling on and off since Hudson had attacked her, felt more comfortable.

Pacifica gave a jolt of surprise as she felt a weight rest on her left arm. Her eyes shot open as she prepared to sit up, but leaned back once she saw that it was simply Mabel. The brunette, equally exhausted by the day’s activities, had reclined against the roof using Pacifica’s arm as a pillow. Pacifica herself remained still, unsure of what to do.

“Pacifica?” Mabel asked after a few moments.

“Yes?” Pacifica responded warmly.

“Do you want Sam and I to wind up together?”

The blonde didn’t have an immediate answer ready, and took a moment to gather her thoughts. Before she was able to respond, however, she felt Mabel shift on her arm yet again.

Pacifica inhaled sharply as Mabel turned to the right, resting her masked face on her chest. Since they were both protected by their wetsuits, there wasn’t anything sexual about it in the least. Mabel was simply seeking comfort in the face of exhaustion.

Almost by instinct, Pacifica’s left arm wrapped up and around Mabel’s shoulders, pulling her closer. Mabel gave a contented sigh and closed her eyes, the tension in the muscles of her face easing as her breathing deepened and steadied. Pacifica instinctively smiled, satisfied that she was able to provide a comfortable place for Mabel to rest. This must have been how Dipper felt whenever Pacifica chose to lay on top of him—she made a mental note to ask her boyfriend to occasionally switch places.

Feeling the gentle rise and fall of Mabel’s breathing beneath her hands, Pacifica thought about the question she had been asked. When she had chased after Mabel hours earlier, she had had no agenda in mind other than providing comfort. She certainly hadn’t intended to become Sam’s sales rep.

But, Pacifica couldn’t deny that she had been rooting for her fellow blonde friend. She had been raised alongside of Sam, and knew him better than anyone—for now, even better than Mabel did. And Pacifica was sure that he was the kind of man who, once he decided he liked someone, would go to the ends of the earth for them.

She had wanted a happy ending for Sam and Mabel. But even as she had talked Mabel through the pros and cons of Hudson and Mermando, she had never lied or distorted the truth. She had been honest in everything that she had said—if, as a result of that, she thought Sam was the best choice, then she felt no shame in admitting it.

“I do,” Pacifica finally murmured. “I think you two will get along well. And I meant everything I said about him, Mermando, and Hudson. I don’t think you should get together just because I want you to, but because I think he’s the right decision. And I hope you’re happy.”

Pacifica waited a moment for Mabel to respond, but no voice crackled over the headset. Looking down, she could see that Mabel was sound asleep, light breathing whistling gently through her nose. Her delicate eyelashes moved as her eyes danced in her dreams, and the air within her mask slowly swirled. Pacifica was grateful she wasn’t snoring—she wouldn’t have been able to stand the sound of that directly in her ear.

Since Mabel was quiet, however, Pacifica was more than happy to let her sleep. Gently shifting lower on the roof into a more comfortable position, Pacifica finally allowed herself to fully relax. Even though they were technically exposed on the roof of the palace, she felt more secure than she had since their vacation had started.

When Pacifica closed her eyes in an attempt to sleep, however, she soon realized that she wouldn’t be able to. With the night vision on in her mask, even the outside scenery that made its way through the thin skin of her eyelids was too bright. Pacifica searched her mind for the command that Dipper had used to turn on the night vision when they had first begun their descent.

“Deactivate HUD,” she finally whispered. With a slight whining sound, the information in the mask began to flicker off one. Her heartrate and the other biometric data went first, followed by the pressure and temperature readouts of the surrounding water. The last thing to vanish was the time, which faded out slowly along with the artificially illuminated city.

For a moment, there was nothing beyond Pacifica’s mask but flat blackness. Without the compensation from the mask, even the steadily rotating roundabout in the center of the city was invisible. As her pupils widened, however, Pacifica noticed points of lights studded throughout the walls of the city that she hadn’t spotted before.

During the day, the city was lit by a combination of bioluminescent algae and seams of glowing chemicals in the natural rock walls. At night, however, the walls were speckled with thousands upon thousands of minute, shining glowworms, pinprick points of light against a carpet of void. They twinkled more brightly than the densest field of stars Pacifica had ever seen. Even this deep underwater, hidden details lurked in the darkness that made the world both above and below the oceans even more magically special. It was different than the night sky above, of course—but it was beautiful, nonetheless.

Pacifica did not know when she finally fell asleep, resting her own head against Mabel’s. She was sure that Dipper and the others were worrying about them, but they could wait. There would be tomorrow, and a whole new set of challenges to face. They deserved their rest.

It was many hours later when Pacifica awoke, her eyes cracking open blearily in the light of the new day. She and Mabel had slept long and deep—the city was glowing at maximum brightness, and the roundabout swirled with the same relentless intensity it had when they first descended.

Pacifica shook her head and blinked to clear her eyes as she looked down at Mabel, still sleeping soundly. Pacifica would allow her to rest for a while longer yet. Craning her neck to look out at Pescadorado, she drank in the sight of the city in the day from an unrivalled vantage point.

It was not just the algae and rock that had grown brighter to usher in the dawn. Indeed, a novel shine seemed to have descended on the city and the world, adding color and vibrancy to not just what Pacifica saw, but felt. She took a deep breath, and savored the feeling of her shifted perspective, certain, fresh, and new.


	25. Ascend

The kelp nets wriggled back into place behind Sam as they passed through the main entrance to the city, heading for the tunnel to the surface. The two boys swam down the ornately carved hallway, with Dipper leading the way. Other than two tiburónes who were assigned to guide them back to Hogsty Reef, they were alone.

A clattering sound echoed through the water as one of the diamond spears slipped from Sam’s grasp and landed on the stone floor. Wincing, Sam quickly bent over and scooped it back up before continuing to swim after Dipper, who hadn’t stopped.

They hadn’t exchanged a single word since the explosive confrontation in the armory. Dipper had simply thrust the large bundle of spears into Sam’s arms, while keeping one for himself, and headed for the surface tunnel. In silence, they had proceeded across the entirety of El Pescadorado.

Sam was unsure if should be the one to break the silence. He was immensely grateful to Dipper for saving him from fighting with both Hudson and Mermando, but he still wasn’t sure that fighting them would have been such a bad thing.

He would undeniably have lost, but he had meant every word that he had said. Even if it was rude to speak the truth, he had to do it—he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself otherwise. Now, at least, everyone knew the way he felt. They wouldn’t be making their decisions based on the illusory lie that he had no feelings for Mabel.

Sam had already admitted to himself that he liked Mabel more than just a friend, and had even talked with Dipper about how he could best approach her. Once they had returned to the Southeast Estate, after the Fourth of July party, he had been planning to ask her to spend the day together in Charleston. Dipper and Pacifica could no doubt make use of the private time as well.

It had been challenging enough for Sam to come to terms with his own feelings for Mabel, but he had never accounted for the fact that other people may have feelings for her as well. And he especially wasn’t prepared for one of them being a merman prince, and the other one being a vampire with a voice like a cement mixer.

When Mermando had kissed Mabel immediately upon seeing her on the deck of the _Stan o’ War II,_ Sam hadn’t been sure how to feel. It had been so completely unexpected, so completely out of the blue that it almost hadn’t seemed real. It was only once they were sinking into the depths of Pescadorado that the reality of what happened sank in. Then, Mermando had taken Mabel on a whirlwind tour of the city, and all of Sam’s fears and worries were confirmed.

When he had been pacing in the sand of the crescent beach, before he led Dipper and Pacifica out into the city where they encountered Hudson, Sam had felt something he hadn’t before—at least, never so acutely. He felt impotent, completely at the mercy of forces beyond his control, and unable to do anything about what was important to him no matter how desperately he wanted to.

Even with his controlling parents, Sam had been able to navigate out from under their thumbs and live his own, unique life. He had his brains, he had connections, and he had resources. But underwater, none of that mattered—even his cleverness was futile in the face of a world he didn’t understand.

So long as Ford was still missing, Sam knew that he couldn’t just leave. With no outlet for his emotions, they had boiled over into anger—the anger to rage, the rage to fury, and the fury into a shouting match in the armory.

As they turned off of the hallway and into the first connecting tunnel, Sam noticed how pervasive the silence had become. No noise from Dipper crackled over his headset—the only sounds were the water rushing around his mask, the steady whistle of his breathing, and the blood pumping in his ears.

There had been few chances for Sam to really be alone with Dipper and have a conversation—the last time had been on the beach where they had found the tracks of something dragged into the ocean, and before that had been while the girls were dress shopping in Charleston. That seemed so long ago now, and so much had changed that needed to be discussed. Even if the tiburónes were listening, and would likely report back to Mermando, Sam couldn’t remain silent.

“Thank you,” he finally said, as they turned down another tunnel. He choked the words out, before coughing to clear his throat. “Thank you,” he said again, more confident this time.

Dipper didn’t respond, continuing to swim quietly forward—he didn’t even turn around to look at the other boy. The diamond spear he was holding glistened in the dim light of the passageway.

“Thank you,” Sam reiterated, calm, yet insistent. “For breaking up what was happening back there with Hudson and Mermando. I don’t know how that would have gone otherwise.”

“I’ll tell you exactly how it would have gone,” Dipper snapped, continuing to swim forward and refusing to look back at Sam. “Hudson would have lost control and broken your mask. Then they would have panicked, because they both know that if you died on their watch, it’s the last they would ever see of Mabel. But Mermando couldn’t have saved you. He’s a prince, not a wizard. Hudson would have bitten your neck in an attempt to turn you into a vampire so you could survive, but vampirism takes time to set in. So, you would have died on the floor of the armory, drowning in water filled with your own blood.”

Sam was silent in response to Dipper’s story. He instinctively reached up to his neck, feeling with the barest tips of his fingers to make sure that he hadn’t actually been bitten. The heartrate indicator on Sam’s HUD ticked up as it sank in just how easily things could have turned out differently. Even if it had been an accident, the slightest thing going wrong would have been enough to kill him. Just like an astronaut’s suit malfunctioning in space, a fracture so deep in the ocean would have spelled doom.

“Yeah…” Sam murmured. “I think the story may be a little bit dramatic, but I get what you’re saying. Maybe I was a little too… careless with what I was saying.”

“Careless?!” Dipper bellowed, quickly turning around in the water. His gloves and flippers moved at maximum speed, allowing him to spin and swim to within inches of Sam’s mask in mere moments. Sam held on more tightly to his bundle of spears as he backpedaled, trying to stop from running into Dipper.

Sam didn’t feel physically threatened—after all, the tiburónes were standing guard, and Dipper had just given a vivid description of how bad things would be if their masks were broken. Intentionally, Dipper held the point of the diamond lance far away from the blonde boy. Still, the glowering look of shame and disapproval on Dipper’s face pierced Sam’s heart far more deeply than the spear could have.

“You weren’t just careless,” Dipper snarled. “You were rude, and you were stupid. I thought you were supposed to be this smart business investor with a heart of gold; I thought you were classy because you were raised in high society. But you just proved me wrong. If a gentleman can’t keep his anger in check, he’s not a gentleman at all.”

Sam was silent as Dipper continued to stare at him. Shamefully, Sam lowered his eyes and bowed his head. Dipper, satisfied that he had told Sam enough to chastise him, turned back around and continued swimming forward.

Sam followed close behind, busy turning Dipper’s words over in his head. Dipper was certainly right about one thing—he could have been much better about the way he expressed his emotions. No matter how strongly he had felt about Mabel, Hudson, and Mermando, there were always better ways to resolve conflict than resorting to a shouting match. Sam kicked himself for blowing up so easily—all of his training and experience with negotiating in the stock market had faltered the moment someone he cared about came up.

But, even though the way he had conveyed his message was flawed, Sam still believed that the content of his words was correct. Hudson was being distracting and dismissive of what Mabel really wanted, and Mermando had been aggressive and pushy. The fact that Sam had lost his temper didn’t change the realities of what he was angry about. He had stood up for Mabel and for what he believed, and that mattered more than the mistakes he had made in expressing himself.

“I am a gentleman,” Sam finally pronounced, his voice firm and resolute. Dipper’s swimming stroke stuttered for a moment, but then continued on—he was open to hearing what Sam had to say, but wouldn’t let it slow them down. “You’re right that I shouldn’t have yelled. I shouldn’t have let things get as far along as they did—but I meant everything I said. I think I was right to be angry… you should have heard what they were saying about Mabel.”

“What were they saying about Mabel?” Dipper asked, a curiously hard edge in his voice. He led the way around the final turn in the tunnels, and the two humans emerged at the bottom of the long shaft leading up to Hogsty Reef and the surface of the water.

“Hudson kept asking us questions about dating her,” Sam began to explain, feeling the words beginning to spill out. “He wasn’t working on helping us to rescue Dr. Ford at all, even when we told him that finding Dr. Ford matters more to Mabel than any relationship would. He just kept asking about her, and it felt gross. He just wanted to get her, not to actually care for her.”

“And Mermando?” Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow. Sam scanned his face for any sign of how he was reacting to Hudson’s actions, but Dipper was being careful to mask his expressions.

Once the two boys had progressed into the center of the shaft, a whirring sound filled the water as the ballast pumps in the wrists and ankles of their suits filled with air. Quickly, they began to rise to the surface, floating lazily in place as their natural buoyancy did the work. As the water pressure readings on their HUDs began to drop, the mechanisms within their wetsuits started to relax, allowing them to ascend without stopping to prevent the bends.

“Mermando... wasn’t as bad,” Sam admitted, cocking his head to the side. “He actually tried to force Hudson and I apart a couple of times. It was more an accumulation of all the little things he had done, like running off with Mabel and kissing her without permission. And then, of course, once I told him what I thought, he got scary fast.”

“He’s the prince,” Dipper answered flatly. “He has to be scary, especially in front of his soldiers.”

The faint smile that Dipper had briefly entertained vanished as he took a deep breath, puffing out his cheeks with a sharp exhale.

“Sam,” Dipper began, reaching up to touch his face but again finding it impossible. “I know you really care about Mabel, and I like that you care about her—but what you did, what all of you did, back there wasn’t caring. It was just jealously.” His voice was resonant, but seemed more tired than frustrated. The tremor in his words and the lines around his eyes bore the combined weight of Ford’s abduction and Pacifica’s assault, only compounded by new conflict between the other boys.

“It wasn’t jealousy,” Sam denied, shaking his head. “I care about Mabel, but I didn’t get angry because I felt like I would lose her. I got angry because of what the others were doing.”

“But you were also afraid that you would lose her,” Dipper fired back. “It may not be a part of yourself that you like to look at, Sam, but it was jealousy.”

Sam was silent in response to that, digesting Dipper’s words. Sam still hadn’t lied—the reason he had spoken up against Hudson and Mermando was because of the way they were treating Mabel. But, if he hadn’t also felt that he was at risk of losing the girl he cared about, he likely wouldn’t have exploded so ferociously. At some level, Sam knew that he was jealous—and beneath that jealousy existed a foundation of fear.

“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Dipper continued, now soft and reassuring. Despite the tiburónes hovering in the water a few dozen feet away, this was a conversation between the boys. “What reason do you have to be jealous? You’ve got every advantage—you’re rich, attractive, and you like Mabel’s pig. She really can’t ask for more in a guy.”

“That’s just it,” Sam sighed, finally giving voice to concerns that had been plaguing him since Mermando first erupted from the water. “I do have money, and I do like Mabel’s pig, and I do like to do conservation work and all these other things. But, despite that, at the end of the day, I am what you said. I’m a guy—and I’m _just_ a guy.”

As Sam’s words trailed off into the water, Dipper rocked his head from side to side, cracking his neck as he looked around. Above them, the hidden roof of the shaft was beginning to come into view—their ascent was taking much less time than the initial descent had. However, there still remained time to talk.

“I’m just a guy,” Dipper offered with a shrug. “So far, that’s been more than enough for Pacifica, and I don’t even have all of your other advantages. It doesn’t matter to Pacifica that her partner loves pigs and turtles as much as it does for Mabel.”

“And I like the pigs, and I like the turtles, and I hope she likes my dogs,” Sam answered, speaking quickly. “But all of my other things—the money, the status, the influence—that doesn’t matter to Mabel at all. If I’m supposed to go up against a merman and a vampire, I have no idea how I’m supposed to compete with that. I know that I’m not a bad person to get into a relationship with, but this _Shape of Water_ bullshit is something else.”

Dipper, his face previously somber and stoic, burst into laughter. Sam looked at him in disbelief—he hadn’t been expecting the man he was confiding in to openly mock the way he was feeling.

“That’s the problem, Sam,” Dipper consoled kindly, coming back down from his laughing fit. “It’s not a competition. It may feel like it to you, but that’s not how it works.”

“Then how does it work?” Sam asked, searching for an answer. “In the stock market, people make money, and people lose money. The pie is growing all the time, but we have to divvy it up based on what we have. Here, there are three of us, and one Mabel. Two people are going to lose.”

“Let me rephrase, then,” Dipper continued. “It’s not the kind of competition where there’s a score, and the person with the highest number wins. It doesn’t make sense to be insecure about how you’re running in a race with no finish line. You can’t understand a person’s feelings like that, and you certainly can’t control them. You’re really good with data, but the heart doesn’t run on numbers.”

“Sometimes I wish it did,” Sam murmured to himself, glancing up at the roof again. Soon, they would be back on the surface.

“So do I,” admitted Dipper. “It would make things a lot easier, especially for guys like us who overthink everything. But, when it comes to love, there are some things you just can’t predict. The best thing you can do is make yourself the best person you can be on your own terms, and wait for someone to appreciate that. You don’t win the prize—the prize chooses you.”

“And what if the prize doesn’t choose me?” Sam asked, hoping that Dipper had the answer to a question he didn’t know himself. The prospect of Mabel committing herself to another, only to have to ride with her all the way back to Charleston aboard the _Stan o’ War II_ was heartbreaking.

“Then I’ll take you out for ice cream,” Dipper promised. “It would hurt, but you would keep on living. With enough time and distance from us, you would grow into a different person, where it didn’t sting as much. The lessons you learned from this would make you better in the future.”

“And what are the odds that I’ll be getting ice cream at the end of this?” Sam wondered, extending his arms and slowing down as they approached the cap at the top of the tunnel. The tiburónes who had been escorting them to the surface exchanged a few words with the soldiers responsible for opening the gate.

“With any luck, one hundred percent,” Dipper smiled, grinning at Sam’s distraught expression. “But, we’ll all be getting ice cream together. It won’t just be you and me. Ice cream isn’t exclusive to heartbreak. I’m sure both Pacifica and Mabel would be more than happy to join us.”

Sam swallowed, and nodded at Dipper resolutely. He certainly hoped that his friend, who had more experience with serious relationships, was right. Just above them, the mermen grabbed ahold of the levers, ropes, and chains that secured the panel atop the tunnel.

A loud creaking echoed in the water around them as the protective slab was lifted up and away from the surrounding sand of the seafloor. Bright yellow sunlight poured into the entrance, illuminating the shaft with the pattern of flickering waves. It had been over a day since they descended into the depths, and their eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. Even as the night vision enhancement of their masks powered down automatically, they squinted and winced as their pupils shrank.

After a few moments of adjustment, however, they both felt themselves relax and a greater sense of happiness come over them. Even being deprived of sunlight for a mere day had taken a toll, and the fresh rays falling on their faces beckoned them all the way up to the surface, and the floating shadow of the _Stan o’ War II._

Dipper turned and nodded at the tiburónes as he and Sam pushed themselves up towards the bright Bahamian sun. The water, heated by both the energy coming in from above and that reflected from the sand below, was as pleasantly warm as a bath.

Neither Sam nor Dipper bothered to use their gloves and flippers as they surged out of the water, swimming under their own power and rising a few feet in the air before falling back down into the ocean.

Leaning back and floating, they both tore off their masks and inhaled deeply, savoring the smell natural air around them. It was still salty with seawater, but there were also hints of other plants and animals, humid with the droplets of a future rainstorm—there was variety, and not merely the same monotonous odor of algae and fish. Their hair, completely saturated, was plastered flat against their heads.

“Jesus!” Dipper shouted as he quickly passed his diamond spear over to Sam, who fumbled to catch it. Dipper, holding his breath, plunged back down into the water. He shook his head vigorously as he reemerged, causing his hair to flare out around him. His hands shot to his face, wiping the corners of his mouth and pulling away the small bits of crust that had formed around his eyes. Dead skin cells clumped beneath his fingers, and he turned away from Sam as he cleared his nostrils with one massive snort. “That was horrible!”

“Yeah,” Sam echoed, quickly becoming aware of exactly how disgusting his own face was. “Dipper, do me a favor and hold these for a minute?” Dipper generously took the bundle of spears, allowing Sam to clean his face in the same way, flailing about in the water madly.

Sam inhaled deeply as he returned to the surface, his longer blonde hair falling over to the side instead of simply puffing up like Dipper’s. When he opened his eyes, the colors of the world seemed brighter and more vibrant. He turned to look at Dipper, who wore a broad smile on his now-clean face.

“OVER HERE!” a familiar voice called out across the waves, prompting the two boys to spin and face the _Stan o’ War II._

During the day and night that the teenagers had been underwater, Stan had moved the ship closer to the entrance to Pescadorado, the anchor embedded in the sand a mere fifty feet away from the hidden panel. Stan stood on the back deck, waving his arms about madly, as though the boys could have missed him.

“Ahoy!” Dipper called out cheerily, spinning to where he was floating on his back. He passed half of the spears to Sam, and they began to kick their way towards the ship side by side.

Stan grunted as he crouched down at the very stern of the boat, opening the gate in the railing where the metal ladder led down into the water. Confusion crossed his grizzled face as he saw the weapons the two boys were carrying. His confusion turned to amazement, however, when he recognized the tips as massive gemstones.

“Did you save the fish people or rob them?” Stan chuckled as Dipper passed the lances up to him, leaning them up against the metal railing. “Either way, I approve.”

“We haven’t done either yet,” Dipper laughed as he reached up and grabbed a metal rung of the ladder. When he attempted to pull himself up, however, he felt his arms shake and he collapsed back into the water. Squinting, he brought his legs up onto the lowermost rungs and leveraged himself up to the deck, extending his hands for Grunkle Stan to help him onboard. When he tried to stand, however, he collapsed onto his back.

“Are you okay, kid?” Stan asked in concern, leaning over his nephew.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dipper answered, breathing heavily. He tried to lift a hand into the air to wave away Stan’s concern, but found it impossible. “Help Sam up first.”

Stan, shrugging, stepped back over the ladder and took the remainder of the spears from Sam. He then extended his hand to blonde boy, who took it graciously. Sam was able to move more freely than Dipper, and sat down with his back against the railing instead of laying down.

“What happened to you two?” Stan wondered, both amused and worried. “I’m supposed to be the old one here, not you.”

“Oh, come on Grunkle Stan,” Dipper chuckled as he slowly moved his fingers, testing to see whether his strength had returned. Slowly, he propped himself up into a sitting position. “You don’t look a day over a hundred and three.”

It was a joke, but the truth was that Stan did appear rougher than he had when the teenagers had first descended. They had only been gone for twenty-four hours, but it seemed as though Stan’s unshaven beard had been growing for several days. His eyes were bloodshot not from crying, but from a lack of sleep. The tank top he was wearing had even more stains than would have been expected.

“I’m a real hit with the ladies,” Stan snidely commented as he picked up one of the spears and started to slowly turn it over in his hands. “From Barbados to Belize.”

“No need to brag,” Sam laughed as he wrapped his hands around the top rail and slowly pulled himself to his feet, his legs shaking. “But yeah, we’re fine. I think we were just underwater so long, and we got so used to swimming with those gloves and flippers that it’s taking us a little bit to get back to normal.”

“Yeah,” Dipper grunted, kicking his legs around to make sure everything still worked. “It’s like astronauts coming back down from orbit. Gravity’s heavier than you remember.”

“It’s ridiculous enough that you’re going underwater,” Stan sighed, extending the metal shaft of the spear down towards Dipper. “Make sure you stay out of space.” Dipper grabbed ahold of the spear and, with a grunt of effort, Stan pulled him to his unsteady feet. “You good?”

“I think so,” Dipper nodded, hopping up and down on each leg several times to make sure that he could walk. It still seemed to be taking more effort than usual, though the fact that his wetsuit was still saturated was likely contributing to that. For as little time as they would be above water, though, it didn’t make much sense to take it off.

“Good,” Stan nodded sternly. “What about the others? Have you found Ford yet?” Stan had been waiting to ask that question since Dipper and Sam had first popped up from below, and was able to restrain himself no longer.

“Mabel and Pacifica are fine,” Sam quickly offered. Dipper cast a long side-eye back at the blonde boy—the girls had run off the previous night, and had not yet reappeared. While they were more likely than not to be safe, whether or not they were fine was another matter—but, with a subtle nod, Sam confirmed that this was the story they were going with. Dipper quietly acquiesced. “Ford is another story.”

“Another story?” Stan asked frantically, questions pouring out faster than either of the teenagers could answer them. “Did you find him and he’s not okay? Or have you not found him yet? Where have you been looking?”

“Slow down, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper reassured him warmly, quickly pulling off his gloves before reaching out to touch Stan’s shoulder. “We haven’t found him yet, but we still think he’s safe. We have a good idea of where he is, and we’re going to be rescuing him soon.”

“How soon is soon?” Stan asked, closing his eyes. “I know that we’re dealing with a lot here, but I’m not down there with you. I don’t know what’s happening unless you tell me. I just have to sit up here and wait.”

“Soon is tonight,” Dipper declared commandingly. “We’re going to be setting out around nine this evening, which means we should easily have him back by midnight. That’s the plan, at least.”

“Ten hours,” nodded Stan. “Ten hours until Ford is back. I can work with that. But… what exactly is the plan? Do you know anything else about the monsters who took him?”

“We do,” Sam confirmed, picking up both bundles of spears and lifting them over his shoulders, though Stan held on to the one that he had helped Dipper off the ground with. “We actually captured one of the vampires, and he told us all that we need to know. We know, more or less, how to get to their camp.”

“How many of them are there?” Stan asked, before raising his hands and stepping back. “I’m sorry. I’m asking a lot of questions.”

“It’s fine, Grunkle Stan,” consoled Dipper. “I should have been sending messages with my Weslee more often. To answer your question, we’re not exactly sure how many of them there are. But we do know that all of the vampires are being controlled by… something else. Some kind of mind demon. If we’re able to defeat it, then we ought to be able to stop the fighting without too much trouble.”

“Vampires, and now mind demons?” Stan shook his head disapprovingly. “Perfect. Is it anything like the triangle?”

“I don’t think so,” Dipper answered. “So far, this thing hasn’t shown a perverse desire to mock us at every turn.”

“That’s good, at least,” Stan shrugged. He was silent for a few moments before continuing. “I’m surprised to hear that there’s another thing like him on this planet. I thought he came from another dimension.”

“Bill did,” Dipper confirmed with a nod. “This one, I’m not so sure about.”

“Do you have a plan to beat it?” Stan asked, gripping the diamond spear more tightly. “If you want to zap it out of my head again, I’d let you do it. In a heartbeat.”

“Don’t worry,” Dipper answered with a grin. “That won’t be necessary. We’ve got a plan, and it involves these.” Dipper pointed to the spears held by both Stan and Sam. Stan looked at the weapons with a newfound respect.

“Really?” Stan asked, inspecting the spear he was holding more intently. He knew how valuable the gemstone would be if it was up for auction, but he was less sure of its combat potential. “How does that work?”

“Two ways,” Sam responded, stepping in for Dipper. “If you use the right spell, it can basically be used to perform an exorcism. But, we think we can also use them to blast sunlight at the vampires in order to stop them.”

“Which is why we’re here,” Dipper picked up. “I know that Ford’s skin-softening lightbulbs use the same wavelengths as the sun. If we can wire those into the spears along with some battery packs, we’ll basically be able to use them as solar lances. With any luck, they’ll cut through vampires like butter.”

“Lightbulbs, you say?” Stan answered with a smirk on his face. “I suppose I can hook you up with some of those.”

“We also need the batteries, another wetsuit, two more masks, and a pair of scissors,” Sam chimed in, making sure that everyone had the shopping list memorized.

“Luckily for you, we’ve got all of that and more,” Stan promised, turning towards the ship’s laboratory. “Come on in and we’ll see if we can get something up and running.”

The metal shafts of the spears clanged and scraped as Dipper followed Stan into the laboratory, with Sam close behind. When they walked, the water that saturated their wetsuits started to drip away in massive sheets, the actuators within the fabric pulsing to dry them off. As they stepped into the air-conditioned interior of the ship, away from the warm salt sun, they savored the smell of disinfectant and aluminum that pervaded the laboratory, and the distant hints of frying grease drifting in from the kitchen.

The laboratory appeared largely similar to the way that they had left it the day before. The screen on the wall still showed the location of the _Stan o’ War II_ highlighted against the heat map of global weirdness. The swirling cyclone of red still surrounded Gravity Falls, while the concentration of anomalies around the Bahamas seemed to be growing slightly but steadily brighter.

The teleportation engine, glowing in pulsing shades of blue and orange, sat on the table in the center of the room. It was still connected to the diagnostic laptop that displayed the engine’s code, though it was now surrounded by three open textbooks. Glancing at the books, Dipper could see that they were all about various coding languages, explaining the semantics in various degrees of complexity. The cursor blinked at the end of an unfinished line of text.

“Let’s see…” Stan mumbled, opening up one of the cabinets and pulling out a plastic box. It was easy to tell which cabinets Stan had been into since Ford had been kidnapped, since they were in a state of comparative disarray.

However, the box that contained the lightbulbs was immaculate, each delicate bulb wrapped in a layer of fine bubble wrap and separated from its companions by cardboard webbing. The bulbs themselves were not shaped like normal bulbs—they were instead long and slender, coming to a fine point. Within the glass were two metal prongs, connected by a thin spiraling filament.

“There we go,” Stan continued as he passed the box of bulbs to Dipper, who handled it much more carefully than his grunkle had been doing. “And now we just need batteries and wire… the masks and scissors are going to be down in the hold, so we’ll get those later.” Dipper, noticing a box of loose parts underneath a nearby server bank, stacked it on top of the bulb box.

Stan knew where the batteries were, as well as a small toolkit and two coils of copper wire protected by blue and red plastic sheathing. He tucked those under his arms and marched into the kitchen, kicking a chair out from the table and settling down into it.

"Let’s work in here, boys,” Stan suggested, beckoning Sam and Dipper to join him around the table. “There’s not a lot of working room with that stupid engine in there—plus, we have chairs here!” Dipper and Sam shrugged at each other in agreement. Sam dropped the spears on the table with an echoing clatter.

Sam slid in next to the wall, while Dipper walked around to a chair on the outside of the table. As he did so, he looked at the general state of the kitchen.

They had only been gone for a day, but already dishes and trash were beginning to accumulate. Two pans, each filled with used oil, were resting atop the stove. A crust of chip dust had cemented itself onto the plates in the sink, and the trash can was overflowing with foil bags, used paper towels, and fruit peels. The odor was at the same time savory, and sickly sweet.

Stan had lived on his own for thirty years, and was more than capable of taking care of himself even if he didn’t have the healthiest habits. It was now evident, however, exactly how much he relied on the better angel of his brother to keep his own negative impulses in check.

The legs of the chair scraped loudly against the floor as Dipper sat down, gently placing the box of lightbulbs on the table next to the lances. He pulled his Weslee from his pocket and leaned it up against a container of napkins.

“So, to start with,” Stan began as he picked up one of the spears and inspected the massive gemstone at the tip. “We have to figure out exactly how we’re going to fit those bulbs into these things. There may not be enough room.”

“I think there is,” Dipper replied, picking up one of the spears himself. The diamond was affixed to the metal shaft by a thick metal wire that had been intricately wrapped around the stone. In the center of the stones, however, there was a small divot where the shaft progressed deeper into the rock. “If we put the bulb in there, and then use some rubber washers to hold the gemstone a little further out from the stone, it should be stable enough.”

“We’ll start by trying that, then,” Stan nodded, fishing a large pair of pliers from his toolkit and fastening the metal teeth around the gemstone’s bracket. Grunting with the effort, he started to pry the wire away from the rock, loosening the diamond.

Neither Dipper nor Sam had pliers, so they were unable to prepare any of the remaining spears. Instead, they began to work on the electrical components—Dipper began to place Ford’s batteries into a series of spare plastic brackets, while Sam laid out lengths of the copper wire that would stretch from the tip the spear to the end. The batteries were shiny and new, encased in a protective layer of blue, yellow, and silver rubber.

They worked in silence for several minutes before Stan, finally pulling the first diamond loose from its position, struck up a conversation.

“I’m surprised you two are so quiet,” he began, a laugh in his eyes. “You just went to an underwater city with a merman, and you’re acting like there’s nothing to talk about. What was it like down there?”

“Wet,” Dipper replied, perfectly serious. Stan, reaching out with the now impotent shaft of the spear, lightly bopped his nephew on the head. Both Dipper and Sam cracked smiles at that, though Dipper did rub his scalp in pain—the pole was still metal, after all. Dipper took the shaft from Stan and began affixing the batteries and bulbs to it with duct tape and plastic sheeting.

“It’s entirely different than what I was expecting,” Sam picked up as Stan turned his attention to the blonde boy. “When you think of an underwater city, you think about somewhere like New York or LA, but just resting on the bottom of the ocean. In reality, the place operates by entirely different rules.

“For instance, it’s not flat. There’s no grid pattern of streets. The entire place is located in a spherical cavern, and there are buildings and roads on every side of it. The mermen can live right side up or upside down, or any angle in between. There are no stairs or elevators—they just swim higher or lower depending on where they want to go,” Sam continued. Despite his resentment for Mermando, he couldn’t deny the absolute marvel that was his city.

“And what’s the name of this place?” Stan asked as he picked up another spear and began to pry off the metal bracket. He set the previous diamond down on the table regretfully, disappointed that it had to go back into a weapon. Even one of the gemstones would have been enough to upgrade the _Stan o’ War II_ from a modified trawler to a proper yacht, complete with private bathrooms and a hot tub.

“Pescadorado,” Sam answered, feeling the word roll awkwardly off of his tongue. “Or, no— _El_ Pescadorado.”

“Pescadorado,” Stan grimaced, licking his lips as though the word itself tasted like the ocean. “What is that? Some kind of Spanish fish pun?”

“Apparently the merfolk met the conquistadors,” Dipper shrugged as he passed the first lance off to Sam. Dipper had affixed both the bulb and the battery pack in their proper places on the metal shaft—it was Sam’s responsibility to connect them, and Stan’s to return the diamond to its proper place.

“Makes as much sense as anything else,” Stan nodded. “How about the prince? Mermano, or whatever. Has he tried to get fresh with Mabel again?”

“He’s tried,” Sam answered quickly, before biting his tongue. He didn’t bother to correct Stan’s mispronunciation of the merman’s name.

“He’s tried?” Stan asked, his voice even harder than Dipper’s had been. “What did he do?”

“He didn’t do anything,” Dipper chimed in, redirecting attention away from Sam and towards himself. Sam, thankful for the intervention, began connecting the wires on the first spear. “He took Mabel out to dinner, and that was it. Nothing else.”

“Did he pay for it?” Stan asked, the furrow between his brows lightening somewhat as Dipper defused Stan’s fears. Sam swallowed, grateful that he hadn’t mentioned the fact that the vampire they had captured also had a history with his niece. Stan would have reacted much worse to Hudson than he did to Mermando.

“Did he pay for it?” Dipper echoed confusedly—that wasn’t the question he had been expecting. “No, he’s the prince. I think it was probably on the house.”

“So long as Mabel didn’t have to pay,” Stan nodded, taking the diamond loose from the second spear and placing it on the table next to the first gemstone. “That’s where I draw the line on dinner. The man should always pay.”

“Grunkle Stan, I know for a fact that you’ve run away from multiple women on dates and left them with the bill,” Dipper grinned. “You don’t have the moral high ground here.”

“Yeah, but that’s me,” Stan laughed, holding his hands to his chest in mock indignation. “Mabel deserves better than someone like me.”

“For a boyfriend, sure,” Sam nodded. “For a great-uncle, though, I think you’re pretty good.” As he spoke, he made the final connection, and the lightbulb at the tip of the spear sparked to life, filling the kitchen with a warmer glow than even came in from the sun outside.

“Woah, what’s with the flattery?” Stan asked, raising an eyebrow as Sam began to wrap the wires together, binding them to the metal shaft with duct tape. Rummaging through the box of parts Dipper had brought in from the lab, he found a small switch that was able to break the circuit and wired it into the line.

“No flattery,” Sam laughed, feeling sweat bead up on his brow as he passed the shaft of the spear to Stan, who delicately slid the first diamond down over the bulb. Picking up the pliers again, he started to twist the bracketing wire back into place. “Just the truth. As far as positive adult role models go, I didn’t have a lot growing up.”

“Positive adult role model,” Dipper chuckled to himself, shaking his head. “I don’t think any of those terms apply to Grunkle Stan.”

“Watch it,” Stan cautioned with a grin. “This thing’s got a tip on it now, so if I smack you in the head it’s going to hurt a lot more.”

A few twists later, and the diamond was securely in place. Stan shook it around vigorously, making sure that it could stand up to the pressure of being waved around in the water. Then, as the final test, he flipped the switch and completed the circuit, sending electricity coursing towards the concealed bulb.

Stan, Dipper, and Sam all winced as the bulb lit up, and the gentle, unyielding glow of the sun poured relentlessly out. Reflected and refracted by the facets of the diamond, the light wiped away all shadows that lurked within the kitchen. Anyone who had been looking at the _Stan o’ War II_ on the horizon would have thought that a bomb had just been dropped. A popping sound came from the lance as one of the three batteries burst.

“Well,” Stan observed flatly as he flipped the switch off, and the bulb slowly died. The diamond, however, kept glistening long after the light within had ceased to shine. “That was bright.”

“Bright’s what we’re going for,” Dipper smiled as he took the lance from Stan and began to wrap it in waterproof tape. Except for the switch, everything had to be protected from the outside ocean if it were to work. “Now we just have… nine more of these to do.”

“I’ve already taken the diamond off of this one,” Stan commented, handing the second metal shaft over to Dipper. When Dipper took it from his uncle, a cringe of pain crossed his face.

“You okay?” Stan asked, for what was at least the third time since they had boarded the ship. His gruff exterior fell away the moment Dipper, Mabel, or any of the kids were at risk of getting hurt. “I thought the muscle soreness would have worn off by now.”

“No, that’s not it,” Dipper grimaced, setting the rod down on the kitchen table. “It’s the scratches that vampire gave me when we got attacked. They haven’t hurt yet, so this is new.”

“It’s probably because you just went from water to air,” Stan pointed out as Dipper started to roll up the sleeves of his wetsuit, exposing the latex bands that Pacifica had placed over his forearms. “Plus, they’ve been kept airtight all this time. They probably need a fresh layer of ointment.”

“You don’t think you could be infected, do you?” Sam asked worriedly as Dipper slipped two fingers between his skin and the latex sleeve. As he pulled the sleeve off, there was a gruesome sucking sound as the material stretched his thin scabs.

“No,” Dipper answered, shaking his head in the negative. His arm was a few shades paler than the rest of his skin, but fresh blood was beginning to flow in. The scratch marks had been shallow, and were now covered with dull red scabs that were already beginning to crack as new pink skin formed beneath. “Vampirism doesn’t travel via scratches. That’s lycanthropy, and some species of zombification. Plus, even if it was transmissible like that, I guarantee that Pacifica did a good enough job of cleaning it out.”

“You still ought to go clean them again, though,” Stan prompted, nodding his head toward Dipper’s arms. “Keep everything nice and neat so they heal up easy. You’ve already got enough scars as it is—there’s no need to add more squares to the quilt.”

“Fair enough,” Dipper grunted, pulling off the other latex sleeve and standing up, stretching as he did so. “Pacifica would want me to take care of myself anyway. Are the medical supplies below deck?”

“Yeah,” confirmed Stan with a nod, picking up another one of the spears and sinking the teeth of the pliers into the bracket. “I haven’t put anything away since Ford got taken, so the medical tote should still be open.”

“Good.” Dipper, still moving shakily on legs that had briefly forgotten how to walk, turned and walked towards the rear deck of the ship. “I’ll get the masks and wetsuit while I’m down there.”

“Don’t forget the scissors!” Sam called after the other boy, who acknowledged him with a quick thumbs up. After Dipper had left the room, the door swung shut behind him with a sharp click. Sam and Stan were, for the first time, alone.

For a minute, neither one of them said anything, simply going about their business. Methodically, Stan pried the diamonds free from their places atop the spears. At the same time, Sam was busy cutting lengths of colored copper wire and connecting them to the switches. Without Dipper there to make the battery packs and attach the bulbs, they couldn’t complete the spears, but they could at least get ahead of the curve. However, Dipper had already constructed a second battery pack, allowing Sam to begin affixing it to the next shaft.

“Pretty good for a grunkle, huh?” Stan asked slyly, letting his eyes slide over Sam and searching him for a reaction. When the blonde boy started, surprised to be addressed and then immediately worrying about what to say in return, Stan’s suspicions were confirmed—it had been a nice compliment, but there had been an ulterior motive behind it.

“W-well,” Sam stammered, getting off to an uncertain start. “Yes. I can tell that you mean a lot to Mabel, and that you’ve been there for her through a lot of stuff. That makes you a good great-uncle,” he recovered.

“Grunkle,” Stan corrected. “Not great-uncle. Grunkle. There’s a difference.”

Sam’s brow furrowed in confusion—there was absolutely no difference.

“I noticed,” Stan continued. “That you said I was important to Mabel. Am I not important to Dipper too, or was there something else you meant by that?” Stan enjoyed watching Sam squirm, ready to crack like an egg.

“I-I’m sure you matter to Dipper too,” Sam responded, trying to cover his tracks. “It’s just more obvious when I see you and Mabel together. With the hugs and the jokes and everything.”

“That’s because Dipper’s a nerd like my brother,” Stan fired back, placing his fingers on the diamonds laid out before him and gently rolling them back and forth.

Sam swallowed.

“Listen here,” whispered Stan, leaning in closer to Sam, who bent forward to meet him. “I’m a professional con-man. I’m banned in most states, and I’ve trafficked in everything from pugs to papayas. I can tell when someone’s trying to hide something—it would be better if you just told me what it was now.”

Sam slumped over. He was caught in a tricky spot—there was nothing wrong with him admitting his feelings for Mabel, but he had hoped to be able to impress Stan a little more before he confessed. Despite everything Dipper had told him about it not being a competition, Sam could tell that Stan was different—he liked when people proved themselves to him, like Soos. And Sam had had precious little time to impress him.

“I like Mabel,” Sam finally came out bluntly. He winced, expecting a harsh reaction from Stan. However, all the older man did was interlace his fingers over his chest and lean on the back two legs of his chair. “I like her, and I don’t know what to do about it, because Mermando the fish man likes her too, and he’s a prince, and it’s… it’s a lot.”

“Seems like it,” Stan admitted, slightly rocking as he sucked between his teeth. His relaxed, unsurprised demeanor made it seem as though he had already known what Sam was hiding. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Do about it?” Sam asked confusedly. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it. I don’t want you to go out of your way to solve my problems. I’m just not sure there’s anything that I can do about it either.”

Stan grunted as he leaned forward, the front two legs of his chair resolutely impacting the kitchen floor. Clasping his hands together, he rested his elbows on his knees like a grandfather about to tell a story.

“Listen, Sam,” he began, reaching up and swiping his gray hair to the side. “Whatever you do with Mabel is your business. I’m sure you know, however, that if you treat her wrong, you’ll be answering to Ford and I, not to mention Dipper. Right now, you seem better than the shyster Gideon—don’t prove me wrong about that.”

Sam nodded somberly.

“Beyond that…” Stan continued, trailing off in a mumble before speaking up. “Dipper will tell you that I’m no good with women. Like he said, I’m not a good role model. I love my family, and I’d do anything for them. But if you ask the states of Texas, Wyoming, Montana, Missouri, New Jersey—you get the idea—they probably won’t feel the same way. I’m not one to come to for advice.

“I’m not good with women, but I do know Mabel. And I know that if Mabel likes you, she will let you know. And if Mabel doesn’t like you, she’ll also let you know. That girl is an open book—all you have to do is bother to read it.”

“What if she doesn’t feel like being read?” Sam asked. He was aware of how odd the situation was, asking a great-uncle for advice on dating his niece, but Stan was one of the few people Sam knew and trusted who had a window into Mabel’s heart. If Stan was opposed to the idea, he wouldn’t even have been entertaining the conversation. “Or, what if she’d rather be read by somebody else?”

“Here’s where my expertise comes into play,” Stan answered with a wicked grin. “The answer is confidence. You’ve got plenty of reason to be confident—you’re Sam Southeast, after all—but it’s one thing to know you should be confident, and it’s another thing to actually feel it.” As he talked, he reached out to where Dipper’s Weslee sat propped up at the edge of the table.

“How am I supposed to do that?” Sam asked, arching his eyebrow as Stan started to rapidly tap a code into the Weslee with fingertips that had been rubbed red. When a beep came from inside the laboratory, however, Stan quickly locked the device and returned it to its former position. “Or, what am I supposed to do with that? I’ve been confident plenty of times before, and I know that I can at least fake it until I actually feel that way.”

“The mistake a lot of people make, the mistake that I made back in my day,” Stan continued, “is that they use their confidence for the wrong reasons. They use it for their own interests, instead of for the person they care about. Then… they wind up losing her.” Stan sniffled and blinked, but shook his head and put on a stoic expression.

“Just do it for her,” Sam nodded. It was the exact same thing he had chastised Mermando and Hudson for not doing—now that the much older and wiser Stan was echoing his own thoughts, Sam felt newfound pride and certainty that he had been right.

“It’s really that simple,” Stan smiled. “Confidence is a power you have to use for good. Do you know who taught me that?”

“No idea,” Sam shrugged.

“Dipper,” smirked Stan.

“No way,” Sam laughed, breaking into a smile to match Stan’s. “I thought he had a good relationship with Pacifica—I didn’t know you thought the same thing.”

“He’s smarter than he looks,” Stan acknowledged. “It’s made me really happy to see them get along so well. Of course, you can never tell them that,” he added after a moment’s silence.

“Never,” Sam nodded stoically, just as the kitchen door clicked open and Dipper reappeared. Instantly, he and Stan reached out for the wires and rods that lay disassembled on the table, doing their best to appear busy. The conversation they had shared would remain secret.

“Find everything?” Stan asked as Dipper set another waterproof bag on the kitchen counter. The sleeves of his wetsuit were still rolled up, revealing two fresh latex wraps around his injuries. Sam briefly glanced at him, confirming that Dipper was able to move normally.

“Yup!” Dipper cheerfully confirmed, unzipping the bag and pulling out two of the glass HUD masks. An additional wetsuit could be seen folded up in the bottom of the bag, along with pairs of the propelling gloves and flippers. “Grunkle Stan, did you happen to keep any of that special algae Mermando brought up? We could make the modification underwater, but I’d rather do it up here if we can.” Stan nodded assuredly.

“Did you get the scissors?” Sam asked as he continued to work on the second spear, connecting the wires to the prepared battery pack and preparing to insert the switch.

“Sure did,” Dipper nodded, pulling a pair of orange-handled scissors out of the bag and holding them in front of the fridge. “Why did Pacifica say she wanted these, again?”

“She…” Sam began, before trailing off unexpectedly. His heart sank into his stomach and kept going, as he felt a tide of bile rising in his throat. Suddenly, it seemed as though the room was spinning as his eyes reached past the scissors to focus on the calendar hanging on the fridge door.

“Sam?” Dipper asked, turning to the older boy with concern.

“Is that calendar right?” Sam asked, his mouth painfully dry. The last day to be crossed out was July 1st. That meant that today was the second.

The journey from Charleston to the Bahamas had taken two days and two nights. If they were to stand a chance of returning in time for the Fourth of July Party, they needed to leave immediately. But, with Ford still missing, and their rescue mission scheduled for the coming night, it was impossible.

Sam slammed his head down on the kitchen table with a thud. He then picked it up and did it again. As he was preparing to do it a third time, Stan’s large and calloused hands caught him.

“Slow down,” Stan said, kindly and calmly. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, nothing,” Sam responded nonchalantly. “Just the fact that there’s a very important high-society party that the Southeasts, Northwests, and the rest of the world are expecting all of us to be at. Plus, I promised my parents that I would be responsible and make sure everyone behaved. And now I’m in the Bahamas rescuing a scientist and a city of merfolk from an army of underwater vampires and my parents are going to _kill_ me.”

“Sam,” Dipper began warmly. “I promise that your parents are going to understand. Sure, you may have to deal with a little bit of punishment for running off with us, but they can’t fault you for staying behind to rescue Ford.” Instantly, Sam starting laughing—not his usual boisterous sound, but a high, pitying cry that betrayed the stress beneath.

“Dipper,” Sam began, too worried about the situation to be bothered to take it seriously. “Dipper, Dipper, Dipper. I thought that you, out of anyone, would know how important these parties are. You’ve been with Pacifica for long enough now to see how they controlled her, and how they haven’t even let go of her now. I’m just the same—the only difference is that I’m supposed to be an adult who can manage going to the other side of the country for college, and that I have a little brother they can use for leverage. If I’m not there when they get back for the party… I don’t know what they’d do to me, much less to him.”

“I know how much these parties matter, Sam,” Dipper pushed back. “I’ve been to them before. I know you remember Christmas. For both good and bad reasons. But there’s more at stake here than just your reputation with your parents. If we don’t go after Ford tonight, he’s not going to be coming back up. You know that.”

Sam grew silent, staring down at the half finished sunspear resting on the table before him.

“For Ford, and for Mabel, and for Pacifica, and for all the merfolk down there, and for me, we have to do this,” Dipper continued. “Pacifica was willing to stand up to her parents to save my life and the lives of people who had done nothing but control her for her entire life. You’ve been slinking under your parents’ noses for a long time, but now’s the time to stand up and be noticed for what you want, and who you are. Are you as strong now as Pacifica was three years ago?” The question hung in the air; a challenge that begged to be answered.

Sam didn’t respond.

“Look, kid,” Stan sighed, reaching up and rubbing the back of his head. “I know it’s not great, but there’s no way we’ll be able to sail back in time. We’ll be sad to see you go—and I know Mabel would be too—but if you like, I can weigh anchor and take you to an island to the south. There’s an airport there, and you’d be able to hop your way back to Charleston.”

“No,” Sam answered, his voice ringing clear through the kitchen. “I’m staying here. For her.” His fingers moved swiftly, deftly connecting the switch to the second diamond lance. With a click, the circuit was complete, and the warm light of the sun shone out again through the windows of the _Stan o’ War II._


	26. Convoy

The massive gate that kept the shark concourse sequestered off from the rest of Pescadorado stood open. In methodical, trained rows, the sharks began to swim slowly from within the tunnel to the grassy training field. Each of the animals had metal rings inserted into the piercings on their fins, and a thin rope of seaweed bound them together into a loose formation.

Mermando was no longer bare chested, and instead wore his family’s royal armor—silver plate laced with intricate gold designs, and capped by a chainmail cap that hid his flowing hair. The other tiburónes on the field, the most elite warriors among the ranks, instead wore armor that had obviously been broken and repaired many times. They also had thin metal plates strapped to their tails, providing for additional weight and protection. Mermando’s tail was unshielded, the blue-green scales shimmering in the dimming light of the city. In his right hand, he was using the trident he had carried during the rescue of the _Stan o’ War II_ to direct the movement of the sharks.

Hudson, Pacifica, and Mabel stood to the side, watching as Mermando and the other officers coordinated the movements of the rowdy sharks. Even though they had been extremely well-trained, they were still wild animals. It was impressive to see creatures that had such a reputation for ferocity react no more aggressively than dogs.

The majority of the sharks were nurse sharks, more suitable for transportation than for combat. Based on the information Hudson had reported about how narrow the cracks leading into the vampire lair were, sharks intended for combat would be unable to make it in.

Soon, the sharks’ individuals trainers swam up to their sides, bearing saddlebags filled with supplies. The mission was intended to be quick and surgically precise, but it was best to take everything with them that they could possibly need. The sounds made as the contents of the bags shook about ranged from the clanging and clattering of metal to the gentle rustle of bandages and food.

The chaos of the preparations in the center of the field, however, were only a small part of the overall preparation necessary for the mission. Mabel’s hair had been tamed from the wild bush it was the night before, and was now tucked tightly around her neck with a series of hair ties and bobby pins. Pacifica’s hair was freely floating in the current, though most of it was captured between her body and the stone wall they were leaning against. Both of their masks were fully powered on and properly sealed.

A long-bladed knife was strapped to the outside of their thighs. Many of Ford’s gadgets required electricity to operate, and couldn’t be effectively waterproofed. The daggers, however, were simple and effective—they were modified versions of the explosive blade Pacifica had used to defeat the swamp starfish in Seattle. Instead of injecting gasoline, which couldn’t be effectively ignited underwater, the handles held canisters of carbon dioxide and liquid nitrogen—the easy press of a button would cause anything stabbed by the knife to rupture in a burst of pressurized explosive ice. Two more of the weapons were hanging on a belt around Pacifica’s waist.

“Mabel,” Hudson began, bending over and tugging at the dark cloth that was bunching up around his knees. Both Mabel and Pacifica’s heads snapped to the left, looking over at the vampire. “I need you to be honest with me about how stupid this looks.”

Hudson was dressed in a long flowing scarf of rough cloth that had been dyed into a mute burgundy color, reminiscent of mashed beets. The garment was held in place by several strategically placed belts, obscuring every inch of skin below his neck. His feet and hands were covered by discarded combat boots and gloves that had been salvaged from the sinking of a military ship. Only his head was exposed, and there was a hood that could be pulled over his eyes at a moment’s notice.

Mabel didn’t immediately respond, looking Hudson up and down as she tried to formulate a response. Despite the intimate conversation that she had shared with Pacifica the night before, very little had changed once they had returned to the palace.

After Mabel had woken up in Pacifica’s arms a few hours before, they had slowly drifted back down to the main rooms of the palace to get something to eat. They had found the city a flurry of activity as Mermando and Hudson had worked to map out their mission.

Mermando had asked after Mabel to make sure that she was okay, the soft tone of his voice revealing the immense depth of the care he had for her. He had been obviously pleased when Mabel told him that she shouldn’t have run out the night before, and that nothing was actually wrong. He had then quickly instructed his waitstaff to take a fresh tray of tuna rolls and crab cakes to the crescent beach, and returned to his work.

Hudson, who the girls had encountered a short time later, had been much more sullen. He had briefly explained the plan to them, including their best theory about the nature of the core, and the fact that there were several cracks in the tunnels to the southeast of the city that would be explored for access points. To counter the vampire army, they were creating modified versions of the diamond spears that were capable of replicating sunlight. Neither Mabel nor Pacifica saw any major problems with this plan, so they accepted it wholeheartedly.

When they had asked about where Dipper and Sam were, however, Hudson had turned away from them brusquely. He muttered the word ‘surface,’ under his breath, and walked away towards the armory. It was obvious to both of the teenagers that something had happened between Hudson and the other boys while they had been away, but they had no idea what it was. Hudson, at the time, hadn’t been willing to add any details. Now that they were earnestly preparing to embark on their mission to rescue Ford, however, he seemed much more cheerful.

“That depends on what you mean by stupid,” Pacifica chimed in, rescuing the uncertain Mabel. Her greater understanding of fashion made her the better person to answer the question anyway. “By North American standards, it’s a bit weird. If you go to Europe though, you’ll find someone wearing that on every other street corner.”

“Plus,” Mabel finally responded, putting the same manic tilt into her voice as would have been present if she wasn’t filled with anxiety. “It’s not about how it looks; it’s about how good it is at protecting you from the sunlight.”

“I know,” Hudson murmured. “But a wetsuit would work just as well. And yours are much more stylish. _Much_ more stylish.” Hudson was unable to keep his eyes from briefly glancing up and down the girls’ bodies, Pacifica’s as much as Mabel’s.

“Then you should have asked Dipper and Sam to bring another one down for you,” Pacifica snapped, turning her head sharply to the side. “They would have.” She had immediately spotted Hudson’s wandering gaze, and was even more aggressively defensive of Mabel than she would have been for herself.

“I didn’t think about it then,” Hudson justified, the meek tone of his voice hinting at an apology that he knew he should make, but couldn’t quite bring himself to speak aloud. “This will work.” Pacifica nodded, satisfied.

Suddenly, amidst the madness on the field as they attempted to saddle the sharks, there was a more concentrated disturbance as a sleek, streamlined shape larger than all the other animals rocketed out of the open gate and into the city. The massive tiger shark swirled around Mermando, who laughingly pushed him away with the butt of his trident. The beast then made a direct line for the trio standing against the stone wall.

Hudson fell to the left with a guttural grunt, not thinking to bring Mabel with him. Pacifica quickly grabbed onto Mabel’s arm with a scream, trying to drag her to the right, away from the torpedo with teeth. All of the other sharks were clearly under control, but this one had gone rogue and was out for blood. Mabel, with a smile on her face, opened her arms and remained standing.

At the last moment, the shark turned to the side and slowed to halt, lightly buffeting a laughing Mabel with the wave of water created by his approach. Reaching out, Mabel started to vigorously scratch the shark’s back, causing his tail to wriggle with happiness.

“Hey, Rory,” Mabel greeted him, moving one of her gloved hands to scratch the shark’s chin, though she kept well away from his mouth. “You probably don’t get to come out here into the city that often, do you?”

“What?” Pacifica asked flatly, unsure of what she was seeing as she slowly got back up to her feet from where she had fallen. The black eyes of the shark briefly turned towards her, but obviously didn’t see her as a threat. “This is Rory?”

“Yeah!” Mabel chirped. “I told you he was a big boy. He’s cute, isn’t he?” Hudson, his eyes flitting from the shark to Mabel and back again, remained on the ground.

“He’s… something,” Pacifica acknowledged, shaking her head in disbelief. “I know you said that Mermando had a tiger shark, but I didn’t expect him to be quite so… real.” It was one thing to imagine someone keeping a shark as a mount, but it was quite another to actually see the animal there, a streamlined missile of muscle bound in faintly striped skin.

“Do you want to pet him?” Mabel offered, briefly ceasing her scratching to point at a spot at the base of Rory’s dorsal fin. Wanting the petting to continue, Rory briefly shook in the water to show his displeasure. Mabel’s hand quickly resumed its position. “I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Pacifica answered warily. “Not that I don’t trust you, but I think it would be best to have Mermando here to do something like that.”

“Are you scared of the teeth?” Mabel mocked, crinkling her nose. “He’s got great dental care.”

“Actually, I am scared of the teeth,” Pacifica chuckled, crossing her arms. “And I’m not ashamed to admit that.”

“Rory!” Mermando called from his position in the water above the drilling field. “I know you like Mabel, but it’s time to get you saddled up, boy!” Rory briefly sank in disappointment, but soon turned away from the standing humans and fallen vampire to return to his master.

“That was impressive,” Hudson nodded, getting to one knee before standing up completely. “I’m surprised that Mermando let that dangerous animal near you.”

“Rory wouldn’t hurt a fly!” Mabel defended, before shaking her head and reconsidering. “Correction—Rory wouldn’t hurt someone who gave him lots of scratches.”

“Well, neither would I,” laughed Hudson, trying to quickly move beyond the fact that he had crumpled at the first sight of the massive shark. “He just caught me by surprise. My first instinct is obviously to scratch the shark.”

“Hudson!” Mermando echoed as he fastened a large metal ring through the piercing at the base of Rory’s dorsal fin. “You get over here too! You need to learn to ride one of the bulls!”

Hudson froze at Mermando’s words—when it came to sharks, neither tigers nor bulls had the best reputation for playing well with people. The vampire swallowed, and then turned mechanically towards the prince, swimming away slowly.

Mabel and Pacifica shared a brief glance before bursting into laughter. Pacifica was scared of Rory, but she wasn’t afraid to admit it. For all of Hudson’s aggression, bluster, and bravado, the sight of a giant fish with teeth was enough to strike fear into anyone. Pacifica was glad that she, along with Dipper, Sam, and Mabel, would be riding into the tunnels on nurse sharks—they were still massive, but their teeth were much less intimidating.

“Maybe he has a sense of humor after all,” Mabel shrugged, leaning back against the stone wall with Pacifica by her side. They gazed out towards the roundabout in the center of the city, watching as night fell. At the same time, they were keeping a steady eye out for the return of Sam and Dipper from the surface.

“I don’t think he was joking,” Pacifica laughed. “I think he really thought we wouldn’t notice how scared he was.”

“I’ll at least give him that win,” Mabel offered with a shrug. “He’s been through a lot—I can at least make him feel a little better. He’s about to go through even more.”

“We all are,” Pacifica emphasized. The mission to rescue Ford and attempt to deactivate the core was going to be a larger scale operation than any she had been a part of before. However, a glance at Mabel’s worried eyes hinted that she was concerned about something else. “But, I’m getting the sense that you’re stressed for another reason.”

“It’s just the idea of telling them,” Mabel responded softly, gesturing up towards Mermando and Hudson. Hudson clung tentatively to a bull shark, keeping all of his limbs tucked tight against his body so the animal didn’t have anything to bite on to. “I’m still not even sure that Sam’s decided he feels the same way about me. I think he does, but I have no idea if he’s going to act on that.”

“I’ll make him,” Pacifica nodded reassuringly. “Don’t worry about that. Plus, even if things with Sam don’t work out, all the reasons you have for not dating those two bozos are the same. They’re still down here, and you’ll be up there.”

“I know,” Mabel admitted. “This is the right decision. It still just… sucks.” Pacifica swayed in the water. As upbeat as she was trying to be, Mabel was certainly correct about that.

“When are you going to tell them?” Pacifica finally asked. Once they had brought Ford back, she wasn’t sure how many more chances there were going to be to be honest.

“After we get back,” Mabel declared. “I know things might be a little awkward during the rescue mission, but I’d rather have that then have both Mermando and Hudson be really mad at Sam. They may already be angry with him, but I don’t want to rock the boat any more than we have to. Especially since there’s so much at stake.”

“The boat’s already rocking, Mabel,” Pacifica whispered. “I’m fine with waiting—I think we’ll get through this either way, but you can’t let things keep going like this. I got the sense when we were talking with Hudson earlier that something happened between the guys while we were gone.”

“Yeah,” Mabel nodded somberly. “I felt that too. I wish we knew what it was.” Then, a smile spread across both of the girls’ faces as their headsets began to crackle as they received new signals from across the city.

“Speak of the devils,” Pacifica chuckled as she looked back out towards the roundabout, and saw both Dipper and Sam descending down towards the training field with bundles of glistening diamond spears in their arms.

“Hey!” Mabel called out, now close enough that the signals from their headsets were able to reach each other. “Welcome back!” She was speaking to both Dipper and Sam, though her eyes lingered on the blonde boy for far longer.

“Umm… Mabel?” Dipper began as the boys started to gain speed, rushing towards the field in a panic. “You do know that you’re surrounded by sharks, right?”

“They’re nice!” Mabel fired back defensively.

“They’re basically horses,” Pacifica clarified with a roll of her eyes, recognizing that Mabel’s comment hadn’t told Dipper anything. “They’re all under control. We’ll be riding them for at least the first part of the rescue mission.”

“Oh, good,” Sam sighed in relief as he and Dipper slowed down, and then alighted on the sea grass in front of the girls. “I thought we were going to have to deal with a shark attack too.”

“Well, that depends on how annoying you are,” Pacifica smirked, playfully ribbing the boy she had grown up with. “I’m sure we could persuade one of them to have a quick snack.”

“Dipper’s the one who’s scared of sharks, not me,” Sam pointed out as he shifted the burden of the spears so that the butts were resting on the ground. “I’m a surfer. I’ve made my peace with the ocean.”

“At this point, so have I,” Dipper echoed, dropping the waterproof bag he was carrying onto the terrain. “If I’ve managed to swim this far down without freaking out for as long as I have, then a little thing like a shark isn’t scary at all. They just caught me off guard. I didn’t even know they had sharks down here.” Pacifica narrowed her eyes at her boyfriend—he was trying to act as unflappable as Hudson had pretended to be. When Dipper did it, however, it was far more believable.

“Speaking about freaking out,” Pacifica interjected, “what happened between you guys while we were gone? Mermando seems fine, but Hudson was really moody earlier. And not in the attractive, emo vampire kind of way.”

As soon as she asked the question, Sam started to shift on his feet uncomfortably, bouncing from one ballast-weighted ankle to the other. Dipper remained stoic, casting a sharp glance sidewards to the blonde boy. Whatever had happened, it was Sam’s to speak about.

“We may have gotten into a _tiny_ argument about the… finer points of the rescue operation,” Sam answered sheepishly. Pacifica could sense that she wasn’t getting the entirety of the story, and had a strong hunch about the details he was omitting.

“But everything’s okay now, right?” Mabel quickly asked. Regardless of what had actually gone down, what mattered to her most of all was that everyone was happy now. If the group could work well together, the odds of rescuing Ford were that much greater.

“We’re fine,” Sam reassured. Once again, Pacifica noted how the ‘we’ didn’t necessarily refer to either Memando or Hudson, merely Dipper and Sam. She would have to interrogate Dipper more thoroughly once their convoy had left for the southeast tunnels. “Don’t worry about us. We just need to worry about finding Dr. Ford.” Mabel broke into a hopeful smile, and nodded confidently.

Everything necessary to begin the mission was lining up. The sharks were being saddled, and Dipper and Sam had returned from the surface with the weapons that would be used to repel the vampires and, hopefully, purge the core. They were unsure about what nightmare awaited them on the other side of the tunnels, but knew that they were as prepared as they could possibly be. Pacifica untied the belt around her waist that held the explosive knives, and passed one each to Dipper and Sam.

“Finding Ford is only half the battle,” Mermando interjected, descending from his position in the water above the group to the field of seagrass. Hudson followed close behind him, his dark cloak flapping in the current as he sank. Sam and Dipper quickly strapped their knives to their thighs in an easily accessible position, and gripped the modified spears firmly. With Hudson and Mermando now in the conversation, the six adventurers stood in a tight circle. “We’ll also have to rescue him, and deal with whatever core is controlling the vampires. Were you able to fix the spears?”

“We were,” Dipper answered with a smile. “It took a little work, but they’ve all got bulbs hidden inside the diamonds. All you have to do if flip the switch, and it will send out a burst of sunlight that should hypothetically toast any vampire who gets caught in the blast.”

“Hypothetically?” Hudson asked, warily raising his eyebrow as Dipper passed out the spears. He handled it as though it was a loaded gun, ready to go off at any moment—and for him, it was.

“Well, we haven’t had a chance to test them yet,” Sam shrugged, a smile teasing at the corners of his lips. “We know they’ll put out a lot of light, but we don’t know how effective they’ll be against vampires. Unless you would like to be a guinea pig, of course.”

“Thanks for the offer,” Hudson replied snidely. “But I’ll have to decline.” The venom in his voice hinted at resentment far deeper than the joke Sam had made would merit.

“We probably should give them a test run, though,” Mermando suggested. “Just to make sure my soldiers know how to use them.” There were ten spears in total—Sam, Mermando, Dipper, Mabel, Pacifica, and Hudson would each carry one, in addition to four tiburónes. “Hudson, if you would like to go into the shark concourse, we can close the door while we turn them on.”

Hudson paled at the prospect of being confined in a space with so many large, toothy sharks. He was rescued by Dipper, who quickly interjected.

“Afraid not,” he sighed, exhaling through his teeth. “By our calculations, each of the spears only has enough battery for three flashes. We’ve already spent one on this spear,” Dipper continued, gesturing towards the weapon he held in his left hand. The plastic casing that held the batteries was slightly warped and pliable, melted by the excess energy released when the bulb had flashed on—Ford’s specially made batteries were capable of packing a punch.

“So it’s best to save them,” Mabel nodded, quickly understanding the limitation they faced. Once they were in battle against the vampires, they should use the sunburst capabilities of the spears only when they desperately needed them.

“Just make sure you don’t accidentally fire one of those things off at me,” Hudson cautioned as four tiburónes approached the group. The armor they wore was more pliable than the plate mail worn by the others, instead consisting of tightly wound chainmail that had been vigorously polished to remove any signs of rust. In addition to the armor, they were slightly shorter in stature than the other soldiers as well—if the only access point to the vampires’ cavern was through a narrow crack, they were the only ones who were able to fit. Their hair, both that of the mermaids and mermen, was partially shaven, and that which remained was held close to their scalps by a series of tight bands. The leader of the group was clearly the red-headed, golden-tailed mermaid who had been actively protecting the prince and his guests since they had descended.

Mermando took the four remaining spears from Dipper and Sam and passed them out to the soldiers, speaking in Spanish as he did so to make sure the tiburónes knew how to use them. He deliberately pointed at Hudson, emphasizing that he was on their side. The warriors nodded solemnly, but were unable to keep a smile from cracking their stony expressions at Hudson’s improvised light-proofing garb.

With a final nod, the four lithe tiburónes ascended into the water and swam to the backs of the bull sharks that were hovering in formation over the field. The sharks were now fully loaded, and were waiting patiently for their riders to arrive. They were arranged in a rough diamond—Rory was at the tip of the formation, with two bull sharks behind him on either side. It was these sharks that the soldiers had mounted.

Another bull shark, Hudson’s, sat directly behind Rory, while the four nurse sharks intended for the humans waited at the back. Floating in the water out of formation were heavily armored escorts on their own bull sharks—they would be able to guarantee the prince and his convoy protection until they got to the narrow entrance, but no farther.

“Well,” Mermando began, turning back towards the group. His princely armor shone in the dimming light of the city, and he wielded both his royal trident and a sunspear, one in each hand. “I think that we’re ready to go. Is there anything else we need?”

Dipper, Mabel, Pacifica and Sam each exchanged quick glances with each other. They had all of the weapons and supplies that they would be able to take with them. Dipper’s Weslee was fully charged and tucked into his pocket, and their masks and suits were working perfectly. Mermando’s scouts had mapped the way to the crevices they needed to check—once they were beyond the tunnel walls, however, Hudson would be their guide.

“Let’s roll,” Dipper declared confidently, earning approving nods from everyone in the circle. Even Hudson, still sullen, joined in. “The sun’s already gone down up top. We’re going to find Ford, and get him out of there.”

“And save my city,” Mermando added, as he began to rise into the water, lifting his trident.

“And save those vampires from that orange demon,” Hudson echoed. Everyone stood to gain something from the successful completion of the mission, and had everything to lose if it failed.

“I have every confidence that we’re going to succeed,” Mermando offered positively. “This is the finest group of people I’ve ever had the honor of working for my city with,” he continued. “But, if there’s anything that someone wants to say before we leave, I advise that they do it now.”

A wary silence settled over the group as Mermando’s gaze landed squarely on Sam. The prince was providing an opportunity for the boy to apologize for his outburst in the armory—he was better at hiding his anger and frustration than Hudson was, as a result of being raised in a royal household not entirely unlike that of the Southeasts or Northwests, but he had felt the sting of Sam’s words no less acutely.

Sam met Mermando’s gaze, and kept his mouth shut. Though Sam recognized how he had been rude during the confrontation in the armory, he still stood by everything that he had said. He also noticed how deliberate Mermando was being with his actions—by calling Sam out so openly in front of Mabel, he was creating a massive opportunity. If Sam yielded, he would be ceding the moral high ground in front of the girl he loved.

Dipper and Pacifica, neither one noticing the aggressive exchange going on beside them, simply looked up and into each other’s eyes. Everything that needed to be said between them had already been said, and each of them knew it.

Hudson briefly glanced at Mabel, but didn’t speak, hyperaware of the contest going on between Mermando and Sam. Mabel’s eyes danced over to Sam, but found him locked in a staring contest with Mermando. Her gaze dropped to the seagrass below her feet.

“No?” Mermando asked in a tone of surprise. He had been expecting Sam to buckle, but the blonde boy hadn’t yielded. “I’m glad everyone here has their lives in order. Now let’s get to it!” As much as he had been hoping for an emotional victory, he still knew that work needed to be done.

The prince then lifted his trident up in earnest and gave a sharp, dolphin-like whistle. The remaining soldiers that were not yet mounted on their sharks quickly rushed into position, preparing to depart. Mermando reached over and took Hudson by the forearm, helping to lift him up towards his mount.

The ballast pumps on Sam’s wrists and ankles began to inflate, causing him to float upwards. As he did so, he noticed Mabel staring at him from the ground.

Neither one of them spoke, locked into each other’s eyes. A flash of recognition and connection passed between them—an understanding that something desperately needed to be said before they broke. Sam swallowed and gave a brief nod before turning and swimming towards the sharks.

Mabel craned her neck as he swam overhead, following him as he approached the nurse sharks. Mabel exhaled loudly as Sam vanished into the formation, not even realizing that she had been holding her breath.

“Is everything all right?” Dipper asked gently, stepping up behind his sister and extending a hand. Mabel turned away and refused to take it. “I’m worried about you. Between you running off last night, and rescuing Ford, and Mermando and Hudson showing back up…”

“I’m fine,” Mabel snapped, cutting him off. After a moment, she backpedaled and tried to be more polite. “I mean… yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. There’s a lot going on—let’s rescue Ford, and then we can talk.”

With that, leaving Dipper slack-jawed, Mabel grabbed her spear and kicked up into the water, quickly grabbing ahold of a nurse shark. She was the only one who had experience riding a shark, and deftly guided the animal farther towards the front of the formation. She delicately slid in between Hudson and Mermando.

“Don’t feel bad,” Pacifica reassured Dipper, walking up next to him and taking his still open hand in hers. “She’s stressed. It’s not about you.”

“I’m still her brother, though,” Dipper murmured as they began to walk hand in hand towards the sharks. “She knows that she can talk to me about anything.”

“She’s worried about the others around here hearing her,” Pacifica consoled. “If you were alone, I promise that she’d talk about anything. We had a good conversation last night about what’s bothering her, so take my word when I say that she’ll be okay.”

“I meant to ask about that,” Dipper frowned. “Where did you two go? You were missing for a really long time. I was worried—we all were.”

“Girl talk,” Pacifica smirked as they passed under the outer ring of the formation of sharks. Their sinuous shadows rippled in the water as they waited to be urged into motion. “I’ll tell you what happened last night if you tell me what happened between Sam and the other guys,” she slyly promised.

“You drive a hard bargain,” Dipper shrugged with a smile. “I’ll take you up on that offer. Let’s just get out of the city first. We’ll need something to talk about on the ride.”

The two unburdened nurse sharks were hovering ten feet directly overhead. With synchronized kicks, Dipper and Pacifica launched themselves up into the water as their ballast tanks filled with air. Even though the nurse sharks were much less intimidating than Rory and the bulls, and they were protected by specially modified wetsuits, they took care to keep their limbs tucked close against their bodies. The wetsuits could only do so much, even with their complex internal structure and the protective coating that also covered Ford’s trench coats.

Mermando, hovering in the water over Rory, briefly spun around to ensure that everyone was safely holding onto their sharks and ready to embark. He held both his trident and sunspear in one hand, his slender fingers capable of wrapping around both weapons at once. He gave a sharp chirp, and the convoy started into motion.

At first, Dipper, Sam, and Pacifica gave yelps of surprise as the sharks below them surged forward—even though nurse sharks were much more sedentary and less aggressive compared to Rory and the bulls, they still possessed enough power to drag the humans behind them as though they were ragdolls. After a few moments of adjustment, however, they adapted to the motion and began to ride forward in earnest. Their gloves and flippers were constantly making minute adjustments to keep them stable.

Due to their rough start, Dipper, Sam, and Pacifica found themselves traveling at the back of the group. However, three heavily armed tiburónes on bull sharks stayed behind them, ensuring that no vampires would be springing a surprise attack from the rear. Mabel and Hudson, who had both had brief but effective lessons on shark control, stuck close to Mermando.

Following Mermando’s lead, the convoy swam out into the center of the city, almost touching the roundabout. Night had largely fallen, and the swirling sphere in the center of the city now held far fewer merfolk than it normally did. However, as the citizens of El Pescadorado caught sight of the prince and his compatriots, riding on the backs of sharks with a military escort, the roundabout stopped. For a few moments, they could do nothing but look on in awe.

Just before Mermando would have led the convoy into the heart of the sphere, however, he deftly turned Rory to the right. The other sharks followed in formation, not even needing any input from their riders. Mermando proceeded towards a large tunnel leading out of the city in the wall to the left of the palace, almost directly above the door leading to the shark concourse.

It was the third largest tunnel providing access into the city, though it was dwarfed by the main hallway that allowed access to the surface shaft. The exit the convoy was heading for was surrounded by a cluster of tiburónes, including the regular guard and the scouts Mermando had dispatched to investigate the crevices in the southeastern tunnels. The protective kelp barrier had been drawn back, allowing easy access as the sharks raced through into the passageway.

Immediately, the light surrounding the convoy dimmed further as they receded from the city and its meticulously maintained illumination. Though there was enough glowing rock and luminescent algae for the merfolk and Hudson to see, the night vision on the humans’ masks began to increase dramatically.

The formation continued forward at a steady rate, guided by Mermando and his scouts. The tunnel began to snake up and down, turning to the left and right as it wound through the rock, farther away from the populated city. The walls were rough and jagged, occasionally covered with crystals and spikes that hinted at the massive geological forces that had brought the passageways into existence.

At several points, the tunnels forked into several different pathways. Each time, Mermando and the scouts proceeded confidently into the smallest passage, forcing the formation of sharks to elongate and narrow as the walls shrank in around it.

“So,” Dipper started, calling out playfully to Sam, who was riding along next to him. “What do you think of your first time riding a shark?”

“It’s a lot easier than a horse,” Sam chuckled. “At least with this you don’t have to worry about how your butt’s going to feel afterwards.”

“Yeah, because it’s so much better to be at the edge of drowning all the time,” Pacifica interjected, rolling her eyes. Even though she had grown out of having ponies, horses still held a special place in her heart. “Plus, you’re not worried about a horse eating you if you push it too hard. All you have to do is a give it a sugar cube or an apple and things are fine.”

“I’m sure you could do the same thing with a shark,” Sam fired back. “It would just need to be a chicken or a seal.”

“Or you could just treat the shark nicely to begin with?” Dipper proposed with a smirk. “That seems like it would be the best option.”

“Naturally,” Sam acknowledged with a slight bow. Then, a dark frown briefly colored his face. “Dipper,” he asked worriedly, “what do you think we’re really going to find on the other side of these tunnels?”

“I really don’t know, Sam,” Dipper answered honestly. There was no point in lying. “A mind demon? Hundreds of vampires? I have no idea.”

“At least Dr. Ford, though, right?” Sam whispered meekly. Even for him, the person who had spent by far the least amount of time with Ford, his loss would be devastating.

“I don’t even know that,” grimaced Dipper. “Our only evidence that he might still be down here is that the vampires like to take their victims alive. Maybe they eat them as soon as they’re captured.” There was a long pause as both of the boys reflected on the grim circumstances in which they rode forward—they had convinced themselves that it was a certainty Ford was alive, and calling that assumption into question opened up new fractures of worry and stress.

“But,” Pacifica interjected, trying to reassure the two men she rode behind. “That wouldn’t make a lot of sense, because then the vampires would have eaten whatever you two found on Little Inagua in its nest. So, until we have evidence otherwise, Ford is alive. This isn’t even a Schrodinger’s cat scenario. He is.”

Dipper turned to look at his girlfriend, who gave him a well-meaning smile. He nodded in response—even if it was a lie, it was a useful fiction. Sam’s expression, however, remained unchanged—a desolate mask of anger, worry, and frustration.

It was then that, crackling over their headsets, came Mabel’s laugh—beamed all the way from the front of the convoy with Mermando and Hudson. The humans at the back of the formation had no idea what she was reacting to, merely that she thought it was hilarious. Dipper opened his mouth to speak to Sam, but didn’t have the time.

Before a syllable was able to escape his lips, Sam had lightly squeezed the fin of his nurse shark and urged it forward, slipping between two bull sharks bearing armored tiburónes to get closer to the prince and the cluster of people around him. Dipper shook his head as his own nurse shark slowed, allowing Pacifica to pull up directly beside him. Sam’s jealousy had impulsively pushed him ahead—but, so long as he didn’t antagonize Hudson or Mermando again, he would be fine. His worry for Mabel had at least distracted him from his worry about the conflict ahead.

“That laugh really got to him, huh?” Pacifica asked as the pectoral fin of her nurse shark lightly brushed against the encroaching cavern wall, causing her mount to shift more closely to Dipper.

“Apparently,” Dipper murmured. “I didn’t think he was the jealous type. Or, at least not as jealous as he’s been acting recently.”

“People never seem jealous until they have something to be jealous about,” Pacifica observed. “I didn’t think you had it in you either, until Sam barged into the Christmas party last year.”

“Neither did I,” Dipper admitted, weakly smiling. Things had changed dramatically since the Christmas party, but Sam still stood at the center of many conflicts. He seemed to be the catalyst for so many changes. “It’s weird, though, how jealousy and protectiveness can go hand in hand. Or at least how people can use protectiveness to justify their jealousy.”

“Just make sure you remember that,” Pacifica prodded. “The second you try to slap those shapeshifter-proof goggles on me again, I’m out of here.”

“So long as there’s no shapeshifter, you’re safe,” Dipper chuckled. “But that wasn’t jealousy. That was just caution.”

“I know,” Pacifica acknowledged. “It was the right call. But you’re right that jealousy can warp how people see things. Did that have anything to do with whatever happened between Sam and the other guys?”

“So now we’ve come to the interrogation portion of the evening,” Dipper laughed, switching the hand he was holding onto the shark with so he could more easily spin to face Pacifica. Each of them had both of their hands occupied, holding onto their mounts and a sunspear simultaneously. “I should have known this was coming. Broadcast range down.” His command was accompanied by a whining in his headset as it changed the power of its signal. As far away as Mabel and Sam were, and as busy as they were with talking amongst themselves, it was unlikely that they would have been able to hear Dipper and Pacifica’s conversation. Still, it was better safe than sorry.

“You knew this was coming,” Pacifica responded, lightly poking Dipper with the butt of her sunspear. “You promised. If you want to hear about what I talked about with Mabel, at least.”

“I do,” Dipper confirmed with a nod. “Basically,” he began, whispering despite the change in broadcast power. “Sam got in a fight with Hudson and Mermando about how they were talking about Mabel. He told them that they were being self-centered and weren’t focusing enough on rescuing Ford.”

“Wait, like a fight fight?” Pacifica asked in shock. “Sam’s human. He wouldn’t stand a chance against a vampire or a merman. Underwater, at least.”

“Well, not a fight per se,” Dipper corrected. “More like an extremely aggressive shouting match. When I walked back into the room and broke it up, though, Hudson had just threatened to shatter Sam’s mask.”

“That does sound serious,” Pacifica murmured. “And you were the one to break it up? How manly.”

“All I did was slam one of those diamond spears on the ground and tell Sam to leave the room,” Dipper blushed, deflating himself. Hearing Pacifica praise him never failed to start a flutter in his heart.

“Still,” Pacifica continued, pushing Dipper with her spear much more lovingly this time. “It’s impressive, standing up to a vampire and a prince in his own kingdom. For both you and Sam.”

“He felt pretty strongly about what he was saying,” replied Dipper. “He’s normally so calm and cool, even when I was yelling at him back at the Christmas party. But when he thought they were being dismissive about Mabel, he lit up like a firework.”

“Funny,” Pacifica answered with a shrug. “It sounds like it’s kind of the same thing that made Mabel run out of the palace last night.”

“What?” Dipper asked in surprise. “I’m going to need more detail than that. I already told you about Sam, so now it’s time to fulfill your end of the bargain.”

“It’s not that complicated,” Pacifica replied. “Sam got into a fight with Hudson and Mermando over Mabel. Mabel got into a fight with herself over Hudson, Mermando, and Sam.”

“That sounds pretty complicated to me,” Dipper fretted. “I can see how that would make her run away, though… I know how strongly she feels about the boys she likes better than anyone. To have both Mermando and Sam showing interest in her at the same time, and then Hudson showing back up into the mix—Mabel’s liked a lot of boys, but it’s less often that they’ve liked her back. Three would be overwhelming.”

“It was,” Pacifica confirmed. “She ran up to the palace roof to do some thinking. It took a long time for me to find her, but we had a good conversation once I got her to calm down.”

“What did you talk about?” Dipper asked probingly.

“What do you think?” Pacifica chuckled. “Sam, Hudson, and Mermando. We picked them apart and put them back together.”

“Did you figure out what to do?” Dipper continued to push. “Mabel still seemed pretty upset when I tried to talk to her before we left.”

“We decided on some things,” Pacifica nodded. “Even if it’s not pleasant, we have a plan. It will be enough to keep Mabel and the others holding together until we rescue Ford.”

“Can I hear the plan?”

“Of course not,” Pacifica laughed. “It’s Mabel’s decision, and it’s Mabel’s timeline. You can hear what we talked about, but not how we talked about it.”

Dipper’s face fell in disappointment—his genuine worry and care for his sister always impressed Pacifica. Having never had a sibling herself, such unconditional love was a rare and precious thing.

“Trust me,” she continued, reassuring her boyfriend. “I wouldn’t have let her come on this mission if I didn’t think she was in a stable enough place to handle it. Our talk up on the roof really helped to ground her. We even wound up sleeping up there.”

“Sleeping?” Dipper wondered in confusion. “Pacifica Northwest, with her mulberry silk sheets, slept on a roof?” Though he was poking fun at his girlfriend, he was truly impressed.

“It’s not that different from sleeping in your dumb attic,” she fired back with a smirk. “Plus, it’s not like it was any colder up there than it normally is down here.”

“You’re right about that, at least,” Dipper shivered. The HUD within his mask showed that the surrounding water was a mere forty-one degrees. As protectively warm as the wetsuit was, it was unable to prevent a wicked chill from seeping through. “When Sam and I went up to the surface, it felt _so_ good to get out in the sun. Like stepping into a warm shower.”

As Dipper spoke, the progress of the convoy began to slow. The escorts pulled their bull sharks to the side, allowing for Dipper and Pacifica to move up to the front of the formation, where Mermando had pulled Rory to a stop. Hudson, Sam, and Mabel, who had been following close behind, swam a little bit farther along to get out of the way, and then turned around to watch.

“A shower sounds really good…” Pacifica echoed as they approached. “Nothing against the bathroom on your grunkles’ boat, but it’s not exactly the nicest one I’ve ever been in. And being submerged in saltwater almost nonstop for the past two days hasn’t helped.”

“You get used to it,” Mermando chuckled, overhearing the final part of their conversation as he released Rory’s fin and swam back to Dipper. “We’ve reached the first crack, but we can’t see far enough into it to spot if it has an outlet anywhere. Can we use one of the sunspears to poke around a bit?” The lighthearted conversation with Pacifica had ended rapidly, and Dipper’s gaze grew stern at the work he knew was ahead of them.

“No problem,” Dipper replied as he released his grip on his nurse shark. Pacifica reached over and grabbed the ring at the base of the animal’s fin, ensuring that it didn’t swim off without him. “Let’s use mine. It already has a charge taken out of it anyway, so we might as well burn through some more.”

Pacifica watched from the back of her shark as Dipper and Mermando swam to the side of the cavern, inspecting a thick, dark seam that ran through the rock. The tunnel itself was approximately twenty feet tall, and the fracture in the wall ran from the entirety of the floor to the ceiling. Occasionally, glimmering bubbles would emerge from the crack and rush to the roof of the tunnel, where they dissolved as the air was forced back into the water by the overwhelming pressure. A brief bit of turbulence in the water caused Pacifica to shiver.

Hudson, Sam, and Mabel remained at the front of the convoy, clinging to their sharks. Whatever they had been talking about had been forgotten as they watched Dipper approach the cavern wall and angle his spear to penetrate the crevice. Investigating the potential access point consumed everyone’s attention—with the exception of Rory, who took advantage of Mermando’s absence from his back to chase his own tail. 

As Dipper forced the lance farther and farther into the crack, the gemstone at the end started to brush up against the rough and cragged rock. Dipper winced at the sharp grinding sound the diamond made every time it contacted the wall. Soon, he had inserted the spear into the fracture as far as it could go. A large portion of the weapon’s metal handle still protruded from the crevice.

“Cover up, Hudson!” Dipper called back as he reached for the switch. Obeying his command, Hudson quickly pulled the hood of his improvised robe up and over his head. He spun his shark away from the crevice and lowered his eyes. Once he was completely covered, he gave Dipper a thumbs up.

Dipper took a deep breath as he flipped the switch, completing the circuit on the sunspear for the first time underwater. Some part of him had been expecting an electric shock as the weapon shorted out in the water, but he was pleased as a high-pitched whine filled the water.

The bulb at the tip of the spear began to glow dimly at first, but then, like a bursting firework, a massive wave of sunlight shuddered from the diamond and poured out into the water. The bottom of the ocean glowed like day as every part of the fracture in the stone was illuminated.

The eyes of everyone except Hudson rapidly searched the rock for any sign of an access point the vampires could have used, that they could now exploit. After two seconds of scanning, the sunspear gave a sharp pop and flickered out as the second battery burst.

In the fresh darkness, made all the more potent by the light that was now absent, Mermando stepped towards the seam and called out into it with a series of high-pitched clicks and squeals. Instantly, the sounds bounced back to his ears—both eyesight and echolocation confirmed that this crack was no deeper than the surface of the main tunnel. The prince turned back to the convoy, head hanging in disappointment.

“It’s just the first one,” Dipper reassured the prince as he shouldered his almost-spent spear. “There are still two more to check. We’ll worry then.”

“Agreed,” Mermando declared, reaching out and patting Dipper on the back. Then, in a flurry of movement, he sprang back up to Rory’s back and began urging the convoy forward. Dipper turned and kicked off of the wall, increasing the air in his ballast compartments to easily float. He grabbed ahold of his shark and, with a gentle tug, began following Mermando and the others with Pacifica at his side.

They continued to progress further away from the city, and the tunnel they were in was getting narrower and narrower as a result. At the entrance, there had been enough room for at least seven sharks to swim side by side, with plenty of clearance. Now, however, the passageway was a mere ten feet across—barely enough space to double up. The convoy naturally arranged itself into a tight dual line as it moved along. Dipper, settling back into position behind his shark, draped the waterproof bag he had brought into the crook of his elbow.

“Hey, question,” Pacifica began, pointing towards the bag. “Did Sam remember to bring those scissors I asked for?” Just as before, Hudson, Mermando, Sam, and Mabel were leading the charge at the front of the convoy, while Pacifica and Dipper brought up the rear. Separating the groups, and trailing farther behind, were Mermando’s select tiburónes.

“He did!” Dipper chirped, deftly tucking his spear under his arm so he could unzip the bag. Reaching into it, he grabbed the scissors by the closed blades and offered them to Pacifica. “What did you even want these for, anyway? We had knives.”

“Knives aren’t good for cutting hair,” Pacifica answered matter-of-factly as she reached for the orange handles. Before she was able to grab them, however, Dipper quickly jerked them away from her.

“Woah, woah, woah,” he stammered, his expression confused and distraught. “Whose hair are we cutting here?”

“Mine,” Pacifica replied, opening and closing her hand to show that she still wanted the scissors.

“No!” Dipper exclaimed, aghast with horror. “Why would you do that? Your hair is so pretty!”

“Because it’s a liability,” Pacifica continued, keeping her hand extended. “You saw how easy it was for Hudson to capture me with it before. I got grabbed the same way when those monsters first attacked the _Stan o’ War II._ If there’s going to be a lot of vampires where we’re headed, it’s one more thing that could keep us from rescuing Ford.”

“Or, and I know this is an absurd suggestion,” Dipper replied with flat sarcasm, “you could just tie your hair up like Mabel did. You bought a hair tie while we were out in the city. I thought it was exactly for times like this.”

“And if the hair tie gets ripped out, we’re right back to where we were before,” Pacifica fired back. “Come on Dipper. Hand me the scissors.”

“No,” Dipper replied, holding them on the other side of his shark, far away from where Pacifica could grab them. “What are your parents going to say?”

“They’ll be mad at me, and then pleasantly surprised when I show them how much I’m saving on shampoo,” Pacifica remarked snidely. “I’m getting better at not caring what they think. Why are you making such a big deal about this?”

“Because I think that you’re overreacting,” Dipper answered firmly. “You got ambushed once… or twice. But this isn’t going to be an ambush—we’re taking the fight to them. You can tie your hair up and tuck it into your mask, or ask one of these soldiers for some hair ties. I’m sure they could spare some.”

“I’m reacting to try to prevent this!” Pacifica exclaimed forcefully, running her fingers through her hair and pulling out another thick clump of blonde strands that had been ripped loose during Hudson’s uncontrolled assault. If she had had a brush, she could have cleaned away the damaged strands immediately. But, since the majority of her toiletries were still aboard the _Stan o’ War II,_ the loose hair was coming out much more randomly. “I don’t want to wind up bald! I’d rather have short hair than no hair.”

“I don’t!” Dipper reacted instinctively, clutching the scissors so firmly that his knuckles turned white.

“You’d rather I be bald than have short hair?” wondered Pacifica, a look of confusion darting across her face.

“No!” Dipper corrected, shaking his head. “What I mean is that _I…_ me, would rather you have long hair than short hair.”

“And why is that?” Pacifica asked.

“Because I really like your hair!” Dipper exclaimed. “It’s one the great things about you. I know it’s a lot of work, but the way you keep it so soft, and warm, and smelling like flowers… I enjoy it.”

“Oh…” Pacifica replied with a blush. “I didn’t realize you felt that way about it.” Just as Dipper enjoyed being complimented by Pacifica, so did Pacifica savor being complimented by Dipper.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Dipper asked with a grin, sensing that he was getting through to Pacifica. “I like every bit of you. Not that I don’t think you wouldn’t look good with short hair, but… the long hair is you.”

“Was Wendy cutting her hair that traumatic for you?” Pacifica poked, returning Dipper’s mischievous grin with one of her own.

“Definitely,” Dipper remarked sarcastically, before trailing off. It was a joke, as was Dipper’s response, but the redhead’s dramatic change to her own style had caught him surprisingly off guard. “So, are you going to keep the golden locks?”

“Fine,” Pacifica conceded, rolling her eyes. She passed her sunspear over to Dipper, who took it gladly as she began to gather up her hair into a tight bun. Dipper considered tossing the scissors off the side of the shark, but opted to tuck them back into the waterproof bag instead. “Just so long as you understand that I’m doing this for you, and not for me.”

“I appreciate your sacrifice,” Dipper smirked playfully. “Besides, it would be a shame to let that special hair tie go to waste.” As Pacifica shot a sarcastic glance back at him, the convoy began to slow again. The sharks deftly turned down another corridor, led by Mermando, Hudson, and the scouts, before coming to a halt in front of another seam in the wall.

This crevice looked different than the first. Instead of running from the top to the bottom of the tunnel, it only covered about eight feet of the rocky wall. In addition, it was much fatter than the impossibly skinny fracture they had previously encountered. No bubbles leaked from this one, though Pacifica did note that she felt slightly less cold than she had previously—a quick glance at her HUD revealed that the water was several degrees warmer.

Dipper gave a grunt as he dismounted from his nurse shark, swimming down towards the bottom of the tunnel. The floor here was much rougher than it had been at the first fracture, studded with rough knobs of igneous stone and sharp shells from animals that had been unlucky enough to find themselves this far away from the sun. He returned Pacifica’s sunspear, and hefted his own into one hand as he approached the seam.

Mermando hovered a few feet away from the adventurer as he closed one eye and angled his sunspear towards the crevice. Since this one was wider, there was less to worry about when it came to scraping the sides. Moving deliberately, Dipper began to slide the lance into the rock wall. Unlike the previous seam, the weapon sank in easily down to the hilt.

Dipper turned around to look at the prince, getting confirmation that he was able to power on the lance. So long as the tiburónes were around, this was Mermando’s operation. The merman nodded his approval, causing Hudson behind him to quickly bundle himself up in his protective clothing. Mabel, Sam, and Pacifica briefly powered down the night vision on their masks. When the bulb was fully lit, it was simply unnecessary.

“Let’s hope this one goes better,” Dipper prayed as he flipped the switch. As the circuit was completed, the sunspear’s final battery activated as it poured its power into the bulb. The wave of sunlight crashed out from the gemstone, once again shedding its warm yellow light throughout the deep blue water.

This time, as the eyes of the convoy searched the crevice, they immediately saw that this fracture went much further back into the rock of the ocean floor. The stone buckled in around the passageway shortly after the entrance, creating a gap a mere two square feet in size, but beyond that, there was a stretch of seawater that faded away into the distance, too far away to be illuminated even by the sunspear.

With a sharper pop than previously, the final battery on the sunspear gave way, and the dark ocean once again swallowed the burst of sunlight. The battery pack was now a molten, malformed mass of plastic and metal. Dipper quickly withdrew the now useless spear from the crevice as Mermando rushed up beside him.

The prince placed his hands on both sides of the fracture and leaned his head into it before calling out with a series of sharp and precise chirps. After several seconds, the distant echoes of his voice returned from the passageway. A gap-toothed smile broke across his lips as he turned towards the others.

“Hudson,” he began, his words resonating with the same princely authority it had when he interrogated the vampire. Hudson slowly peeked out from within his protective hood, looking at the crevice. A spark of recognition flashed across his face. “Does this look familiar?”

“Not in a good way,” Hudson grimaced before closing his eyes. His memories were still uncertain and vague, but were accurate enough to let him know that this was a place he didn’t care to be. “I think this one could definitely be it.” Sam and Mabel both exchanged quick glances of hopefulness and worry. Dipper looked up at Pacifica, who greeted his broad smile with one of her own.

“Then it’s worth checking out!” Mermando declared, giving a sharp whistle as he ascended back up to where Rory sat patiently. The prince began to remove his bulky armor and tie his hair back, handing off the intricate plate to one of the escorts. It was going to be impossible to fit through the crevice in plate mail, regardless of how wide they were able to force it open.

As Mermando disrobed, two other tiburónes reached into the saddlebags adorning their bull sharks. One pulled out an industrial car jack, grunting with the effort as he wedged it at an angle into the gap between the two walls of the crevice. The device was old and rusted, having likely been salvaged from a sunken cargo ship, but it would still work for their purposes.

The other soldier withdrew a series of large leather straps. Slowly, she approached the prince’s tiger shark. Mermando nodded as she did so, gently scratching Rory’s nose as the soldier looped the harness around the shark’s dorsal and pectoral fins—once the bands were tight, the other end was attached to the waiting jack. It would take an immense amount of force to move the jack and crack the rock, and that kind of pressure would have torn the mounting ring out of the soft cartilage of Rory’s dorsal fin immediately. 

Hudson, along with the humans, merely watched in awe as the tiburónes carried out the operation. Other than the smaller soldiers in the mail with their sunspears, the rest of the militia would be unable to join them on the vampiric side of the tunnels. The army was loyal to their prince, however, and would do everything that they could to assist him in his endeavor to rescue Ford and to save their city.

Dipper kicked off of the tunnel floor, swimming back up to his nurse shark to give the soldiers room to work. Without speaking a word, he started to perform a supply check on Pacifica, Sam, and Mabel, ensuring that their suits were working and that they were equipped with explosive knives. The two additional masks Dipper had brought from the surface were in the waterproof bag currently resting on the back of his nurse shark.

Speaking rapidly in Spanish, the tiburónes in charge of the jack lightly buffeted Mermando away and towards the opposite side of the tunnel to ensure that he was out of harm’s way. Following his lead, all of the other soldiers and sharks moved farther away from the crack as well. With the area around the work site now clear, the soldiers nodded at Mermando.

Lifting his fingers to his mouth, Mermando gave another sharp whistle, this time instructing his tiger shark to pull.

Rory surged forward with three massive beats of his tail, sending a massive, shuddering jolt through the rusted jack. As the metal screw turned, sharp cracks sounded throughout the tunnel. Smaller fractures began to appear in the rock beside the crevice, prompting chunks of stone and dust to fall away.

The tiger shark kept pulling, causing the structure around the narrow passageway entrance to further crumble. Finally, the material had softened so much that the jack fell away from its position, tumbling to the floor of the tunnel with a clang.

“Good boy,” Mermando praised, scratching behind Rory’s dorsal fin as the heavily armored tiburónes removed the leather harness from the shark’s body. The prince turned and looked at the newly opened crevice, allowing Rory to swim away lazily—he wouldn’t go far.

Previously, the entrance had been a mere foot across. Now, thanks to the immense pressure exerted by the jack, the outer bounds had doubled in width. The height of the seam, which began at eight feet, quickly decreased to two feet in height, but then opened back up—it would be challenging to fit through the bottleneck, but with dedication and horizontal swimming, it could be done.

Hudson, Pacifica, Sam, and Mabel all dismounted their sharks, sinking down to the rough bottom of the tunnel as they prepared to enter the newly exposed tunnel. Each wielded a sunspear, and Pacifica had the waterproof bag containing the scissors and two additional masks. They stood in a semicircle around the entrance, waiting for Mermando and Dipper to take the lead.

“Mack,” Mermando began, reaching out to take the expended sunspear from Dipper. One of the male tiburónes in chainmail swam forward to meet the prince. “You’re relieved from this mission. Trade spears with Dipper, and wait here with the others until we return.” As he spoke, the heavily armored soldiers began setting up a perimeter around the crevice.

Bowing deeply, the merman gave Dipper his unused spear. Then, unslinging a short sword from a belt around his waist, he handed the blade to the previously unarmed Hudson. Now Dipper, Mermando, Sam, Mabel, Pacifica, Hudson, and each of the three small chain-mail tiburónes wielded diamond-tipped sun lances with three full charges. Mermando had his royal trident, Hudson a new short sword, and each of the humans bore a modified explosive knife on their thighs. Additionally, Dipper had his seaforged knife strapped to the opposite leg.

“Okay,” Dipper said, speaking to the group with a loud exhale. “I have no idea what we’re going to find beyond this tunnel, but I know that we’re more than capable of handling it. Remember—our first priority is to rescue Ford. Our second priority is to kill the core. Everyone got it?”

All nine adventurers nodded affirmatively. Pacifica shouldered the waterproof bag resolutely. Sam glanced nervously at Mabel, who stood staring at the yawning maw of the narrow cave with hatred and determination.

“Alright then,” Dipper continued, turning towards the new entrance. “Mermando, Hudson, lead the way.” He tightened his grip around the metal shaft of his spear.

“After you, Hudson,” Mermando deflected, swimming back and gesturing the vampire towards the open crevice. Whatever mysteries lay beyond the narrow passageway, from a mind demon to a vampire army, Hudson was the only one who had been there and returned to tell the tale.

Hudson shuffled his feet nervously. Being under the influence of the orange light had not been a positive experience, and it was one that he was not anxious to repeat. Still, he recognized the immense stakes of the current operation—not merely for himself, but for Pescadorado as a city, and for those who loved Ford.

The vampire inhaled deeply, a breath that he did not need to take, and slipped into the narrow crevice, bounded on either side by millions of pounds of ocean and rock.


	27. Infiltration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re looking for some creepy instrumental ambiance for the beginning of this chapter, I recommend "Voidfish (Plural)" by Rachel Rose Mitchell. It’s not mandatory, of course!

Sam winced as he forced himself through the two by two foot gap, feeling his joints crack as his arms contorted and folded up. Inch by inch, his fingers desperately scrabbling onto the rock, he crawled past the bottleneck and into the rest of the cave. Once he felt his hips slip through, he gave a sigh of relief as he tumbled to the ground, before carefully standing back up—this side of the stone window was hardly better.

Mermando, still in the main tunnel with the convoy of sharks, passed Sam his sunspear. After Hudson had crawled through the crack in the rock wall of the underwater tunnel, Sam had volunteered to go next. The more bodies he could put between the girls at the back of the line and whatever monstrosities lurked in the water ahead, the better. As Sam grabbed ahold of the weapon, careful to keep the switch at the base of it protected, he craned his neck up and around to look at his surroundings.

The narrow passageway was less than two feet in width, forcing Hudson and the humans to shuffle through it sideways. Mermando, who’s long body was more like a snake’s, would have to writhe his way forward through the slight swells and curves in the rock. The roof occasionally dipped down, forcing Sam to crouch if he wanted to advance.

The light within the crevice was nonexistent. Even the night vision features on the masks were struggling to figure out what they were looking at, since there was no illumination to amplify. Every so often, Sam could feel the mask vibrate as it sent out a sonic pulse into the water, using its own sonar system in an attempt to create a map. Since the walls were so close, however, the software in the mask was unable to parse the signals effectively. Even Hudson, with his vampirically enhanced vision, was largely blind.

The only thing Sam could see was the craggy, sharpened stones two inches beyond the glass of his mask. There were no plants, crustaceans, or even worms that had made their home in this seam of rock—it was desolate and completely barren of life. The only signs of activity were the adventurers currently forcing their way through.

Sam winced as his rebreather brushed up against the rock, causing the seal on the mask to shift and a violent sloshing sound to assault his ears. His hands flew up to his face, making sure that there wasn’t a leak. A small amount of water ran down from his ears to settle at his chin—this deep, the water pressure itself helped to keep the seal intact.

He winced as his elbow banged into the wall and sent a shattering ripple through his nerves. He reached over to rub the bruise, but found that he couldn’t bring his arm from one side of his body to the other. The static noise within his muscles slowly began to dissipate as it began to sink in exactly how claustrophobic the crevice was.

Hudson began to creep forward, allowing room for more members of the party to pull themselves through the stone window and into the cave. Sam turned his head carefully, looking at the back of the vampire as he began to shuffle forward. Even keeping Hudson in sight was challenging, due to the dark ink which stained his sunproof robe. The dim flash of his eyes was the only signal that something moved in the darkness ahead.

Suddenly, Sam found himself being jerked backwards by his waist. Moving with a new sense of deliberateness, he turned to see if someone else had forced their way into the passage. Instead of a gnarled hand, however, he found the fabric of his wetsuit caught on a small protrusion in the stone wall.

His eyes went wide with panic as he shifted backwards, freeing the captured fabric and smoothing it back down against his body. The wetsuit consisted of three layers, but the slightest tear could disrupt the pressure regulation system that kept the humans alive. If water could force its way into the gap between the wetsuit and the skin, they would crumple like tin cans under the thousands of pounds of pressure created by the water around them.

Sam took a deep breath, grateful that the algae within his mask were able to keep up with his hyperventilating panic. The small amount of light that continued to pour in from the tunnel with the sharks was obscured as Mermando drifted up into the window, preparing to step through.

“This is absurd,” Mermando mumbled to himself as he forced his way through the narrow gap—his skeleton, adapted for underwater life, made it easier for his broad shoulders to collapse on the way into the passageway. His tail, however, as sinuous and muscular as it was, couldn’t bend in quite the same way. As the sides of his tail scraped against the rough rock, a shower of shimmering blue-green scales dusted the floor. “But it makes sense why the vampires would have used this to get closer to the city. We never would have thought to look here—and even if we did, we wouldn’t have been able to fit.”

“I don’t like this any more than you do,” Hudson fired back as he started to advance, blinking as he tried to peer into the darkness. Sam, steeling his resolve, continued to inch forward. “Let’s just get through this tunnel and we’ll be fine. We can figure out the rest once we get there.”

“Do you know how long this is?” Sam asked tentatively, as no light was evident at the other end of the passage. It simply faded into darkness, and continued on, showing no signs of opening up.

“Maybe three hundred feet?” Hudson suggested with a grimace. “I don’t really remember. I know I came through here as a vampire, but I just have flashes of the walls scraping my skin and the orange light at the other end. No more detail than the fact that it was awful.”

“Fantastic,” Mermando and Sam grumbled in unison. About this, at least, they seemed to agree. Behind them, there was a clinking of metal as the first of Mermando’s chain-mailed tiburónes slipped through the window. There were three of them—two women and a man, each of whom were smaller in stature than the prince. They had been remarkably silent throughout the convoy ride, and showed no signs of changing—they were resolute, and followed the prince’s orders unhesitatingly.

With as much speed as they could manage, another soldier followed the first. There was now a good deal of distance between the leading Hudson, and the other humans and the tiburón who had yet to enter the crevice. Sam found himself sandwiched between two rock walls, with Hudson in front of him and Mermando behind.

The blonde boy was so focused on navigating through the passageway and preventing his wetsuit from getting caught on the rock, wincing every time he felt the rough walls scrape his skin, that he didn’t notice Hudson had slammed to a stop in front of him. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw a flap of burgundy fabric settling in the water, giving him just enough time to stop. 

“Hudson?” Sam asked as he settled down in the water, the ballast tanks in his suit removing what little buoyancy he had been using. “What’s wrong?” Fear swelled in Sam’s heart as the vampire slowly turned his head, fully expecting to see that the orange fire had returned to his eyes. However, his eyes appeared the same cool grey as always, bounded by a his tightly bound hair and well kempt beard.

Sam then gave another jump as he felt a hand settle on his right shoulder. His head snapped over and saw Mermando hovering in the water upside down, using the pinching walls of the cave to support himself. He didn’t even have to both swimming. Behind him, the second tiburón appeared to be having difficulties getting through the bottleneck, preventing Mabel or the others from seeing into the tunnel.

Sam swallowed. He had been at the surface with Dipper for a long time, which would have provided more than enough time for the prince and the vampire to conspire together. If they wanted to do him in, there would be no better time to make it seem like an accident—they would be the only witnesses, and the tiburónes already in the passageway would follow Mermando to the death. It would be so easy for his mask to get accidentally knocked off.

“What is this?” Sam asked in a panic. For a moment, he was filled with hope as he considered his earpiece that was broadcasting to the others. He then realized that he wasn’t hearing anything from his friends. He was already a good distance away from the convoy, and the rock walls killed any radio signals that were being broadcast. The soldier becoming stuck in the stone window was beginning to seem suspiciously well timed.

“Sam,” Mermando began, his voice both resigned and resolute. There was no hint of the aggressiveness that the blonde boy had been expecting. “I know we’ve had our problems in the past. And you know that too—how you yelled at us back in the armory wasn’t cool.”

“Saying that we don’t care about Mabel,” Hudson snarled, unconsciously baring his fangs. The vampire and the prince both obviously harbored resentment for Sam, but Mermando was doing a far better job of concealing it. “How dare you?”

"I—” began Sam, this time fully intending to apologize. He had been caught up in his emotions during the confrontation in the armory, but it was obvious now that the deck was tremendously stacked against him.

“No,” Mermando interjected. “Don’t talk. Just nod. What matters right now isn’t the problems we have with each other. What matters right now isn’t even Mabel. What matters now is rescuing her uncle and keeping my people from getting attacked. Do you understand?”

Sam nodded in response, using all of his effort to keep from speaking. There was so much he felt the need to say. Some part of him was angry at both the other boys’ presumption that he was not completely dedicated to their mission, and that they felt the need to have this conversation in a place where Sam was completely at their mercy.

“So until we get back to Pescadorado,” Hudson murmured, his voice grinding in the water, “we’ve agreed to put our differences aside. For the sake of the people who were captured or possessed by the core, and for Mabel. Can we count on you to do the same?”

Sam hardened his gaze, and nodded once again. It was a tight nod, as he felt the muscles in his neck clenching and unclenching. By forcing Sam to agree to treat the mission as of the foremost importance, the implication was obvious—Hudson and Mermando both believed that Sam was just as liable to put his own interest in Mabel over Mabel’s interest in rescuing Ford. It was the same charge the blonde boy had leveled against them, and it stung all the more due to Sam’s certainty that he was different.

Hudson and Mermando both echoed the nod, and then withdrew from their positions around Sam. Hudson quickly stepped forward, while the prince wriggled backwards throughout the cavern, sending another shower of glistening scales cascading down onto the floor. Far behind them, the tiburón who was stuck in the bottleneck miraculously managed to pry himself loose.

Sam looked back as Mabel’s eager face appeared in the stone window, preparing to step into the tunnel. He gave a sigh of relief and began to move forward again, creeping slowly behind the leading vampire.

At the bottleneck, Dipper followed Mabel, and Pacifica followed Dipper. The final remaining chainmail mermaid—the one with the golden tail—brought up the rear as the convoy tightened their positions around the fracture. The only things that could harm them now were the dangers that lurked ahead, or the walls of the tunnel itself.

Sam wished that he could flash his sunspear to get a better sense of the terrain that lay ahead of them. Doing so, however, would both roast the unexpecting Hudson and give away their position if any light happened to leak out of the passageway’s exit. Instead, he simply gritted his teeth.

Slowly, he continued to creep forward. He noticed that he was beginning to move faster, despite the fact that the passageway remained as dark, cramped, and claustrophic as ever. Mermando, as well, seemed to be having an easier time slipping through the narrow gaps.

Sam turned his mask back to the stone wall in fascination, and saw that it was now covered with a thick green slime. He ran his finger tentatively throughout the mass, pulling thick strands of it away from the rock as though it were mucus. The slime had small fragments of glistening solids embedded within it, though whether it was rock or bone Sam wasn’t sure. He grimaced, grateful that he was wearing gloves, and that the masks were not equipped with smell features.

Around him, he could feel a low rumble in the rock. He was unsure if it was the movement of the stone around him as the earth prepared to slip and to shake as magma moved beneath it, or if some gargantuan beast was rattling a maraca full of teeth. He grabbed ahold of the wall to steady himself as he felt his feet slip in thick mat of slime that had accumulated on the floor—wherever the sound was coming from, it shook him to his core.

His head quickly raised in confusion when he heard a crackle over his headset, and heard Dipper laughing. The front and back of the line had grown close enough to each other that signals were able to be sent between the headsets. If Dipper was in a good enough mood to laugh, he obviously was not yet hearing and feeling the same things as Sam.

“Pacifica,” Dipper asked playfully as he turned back to face his girlfriend. There was only one way forward, so he wasn’t worried about taking a wrong turn. “Compare this to the time we got trapped in Crash Site Omega. Which one was better?”

“What do you mean by better?” Pacifica remarked cleverly, carefully arching her back to avoid scraping against the rough stone of the walls. “Because if you mean ‘where would I rather be,’ the answer is Omega by a long shot. Or a burlap sack. This is horrible.”

“Yeah…” Dipper shrugged, disappointed that she had no witty banter to offer—she knew that rescuing Ford would require her complete focus and attention, and had no mental energy for jokes. The underwater crevice was easily the correct answer, after all. Omega had merely been dark and held the possibility of a shapeshifter lurking within it. The passageway they were in now was dark, suffocating, cold, slimy, and easily fatal. The danger that waited ahead was undeniably real. Compared to this, the burlap sack he had found himself in with Pacifica their first year in the Falls was a vacation. “I just figured I’d try to lighten the mood.”

“You could have lightened the mood by bringing a flashlight or something,” Mabel chided from ahead of her brother. “I know those work underwater.”

“I thought the night vision would be enough!” Dipper defended passionately. Behind him, Pacifica’s eyebrows raised as her headset began to crackle with static. She removed her hand from the wall and found it covered with slime, causing her to draw back her upper lip and expose her teeth in disgust.

“Shhh!” Pacifica quickly interjected, silencing both of the twins. The tiburónes ahead of them briefly halted.

For a moment, every ear perked up as they listened for what Pacifica had heard, a sound that was being filtered in from the outside water through the microphones in the masks and sent to their earpieces. At first, there was no sign of it.

“What is that?” Mabel asked, turning around to face Dipper in surprise as the sound began to become louder. Dipper furrowed his brow harder, as the girls both picked up on it before he did. Then, as the very ground beneath them seemed to shake, Dipper heard it.

In the far distance, reverberating through the water in a high-pitched trill, came a sound that was neither human nor animal. It sounded somewhat like an ape, calling out in the night and hoping for a haunting, mournful echo. Mabel and Dipper looked at each other with an expression of worry before Dipper gave a reassuring nod and urged her forward.

Pacifica grimaced as the sounds coming from ahead became more and more distinct. In addition to the trilling, there was a much lower register of harsh and violent grunts. In her ears, she began to feel the pumping of a heartbeat that was not her own. Beginning to hyperventilate, she glanced up at the environmental readout on her HUD—the water temperature was beginning to skyrocket, already reaching sixty degrees. The joints of her wetsuit began to stiffen with sweat.

The water was blue and dark, but now began to ripple more frequently. Pacifica could feel currents running intensely within the passageway, trying to force her flat against the rough rock walls. It took all of her strength to brace herself and keep from collapsing into the stone.

“…ahead… light…” Sam’s voice crackled back over the weak headset connection. Instantly, every eye glanced forward as a glimmer began to reflect off of the translucent goo that, by now, covered every inch of the cave walls. The slime itself didn’t seem to be harmful—it was merely a mat of bacteria that were taking advantage of the light and warm water to thrive in a place that had been uninhabitable previously.

Dipper, Pacifica, Sam, and Mabel all winced as the light began to grow brighter, penetrating through the water and removing the need for their night vision. Unlike the cool blue and green lighting of Pescadorado, this shine was vibrant and powerful, shedding a warm orange glow on everything it touched.

Every heart began to pound more loudly as the narrow walls of the cavern began to open up around them, eventually providing room so they could turn and swim forward normally. Each sunspear was held at the ready as Pacifica pulled up next to Dipper, and Sam fell back next to Mabel. The tiburónes surged to the front as Mermando took the lead over Hudson. Now, their quarry was obvious.

“It’s… brighter than I thought it would be,” Mabel mumbled as she slowly paddled forward. Now that the walls were open around the party, they could speak to each other without interference.

“It’s better than it being pitch black,” Pacifica fired back as she hovered in the water. She was using the spines on her gloves and flippers to automatically propel herself, trying her best to avoid touching the mats of rapidly growing bacteria on the passage walls. She was completely protected by her wetsuit, but that didn’t mean that she wanted to touch the goop any more than was necessary.

“Be quiet!” Hudson called back to them as sharply as he could, silencing the rest of the group. He was worried not about hearing the now cacophonous sounds echoing around them, which radiated from a fixed point ahead, but about giving away their position.

Pacifica and Mabel both sealed their lips apologetically as Mermando, at the front of the group, suddenly darted to the left. The sides of the passageway had opened up dramatically, forming the shape of a cross in the ocean floor. One by one, the others approached the termination of the crevice and peered out into the massive cavern before them in wonder.

It took a long time for them to comprehend what they were seeing.

The seam in the rock that they had followed, pressed on every side for over the length of a football field, ended abruptly at the edge of a large, spherical void in the crust of the ocean floor. At either side of the termination was a gap approximately four feet deep by ten feet long, allowing every member of the expedition to stand side by side in the trench. If they crouched, they would completely vanish from sight—for the humans, it was reminiscent of a dugout in baseball.

The igneous walls of the cavern protruded slightly over the top of the trench, providing shelter and allowing them to peer out into the warm orange water. Without the furrow to hide in, they would all have been immediately spotted by the dozens of vampires which roamed the open seafloor, eyes burning like searchlights.

The cavern that the group of nine now hid at the base of was easily as large as the one that held El Pescadorado. However, instead of the walls being covered in the intricate buildings, shops, and roadways that supported the city, they were melted to a dripping, obsidian texture that reflected the light in the center of the city like glass. At several points in the middle of the walls were large tunnels that allowed for the constant movement of vampires.

At the center of the void was a stone pedestal, rising hundreds of feet into the water. Where in Mermando’s city there would have been a swirling roundabout of merfolk going about their daily business and living their lives, there was here a glowing, pulsing, orange… blob.

The core at the heart of the cavern was shaped vaguely like an egg, and gave off a gently compelling heat that radiated throughout the space. From a distance, the surface of it looked as though it were as hard as clear glass. However, as the core gently rose and fell, and pumped more subtly as though it contained a heart of its own, it became obvious that it was organic. A dark shape shifted within the bounds of the thirty-foot egg.

Trailing away from the core were ten thick tentacles, each almost nine feet in diameter at the place they connected with the egg. As they draped down the sides of the stone pedestal, however, they began to shrink. They divided and forked, splitting ends upon ends until they were no thicker than a garden hose. The field of branching tentacles stretched out across the sandy floor of the cavern, a massive root system that fed the core.

The end of every single tentacle, with hundreds upon hundreds of branches, held a body.

The bodies belonged to humans and to merfolk, to sea creatures and to land animals. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason behind who had been taken, from businessmen in suits to fishermen who still had their protective sun hats dangling around their necks. Closer to the center of the body farm was the corpse of a massive red boar beside that of an infant whale.

The only similarity amongst the bodies was that every one of their eyes was open, rendered glassy and flat as they stared forward in constant fear. Around the necks of every victim, the two inch tips of the tentacles were tightly coiled, holding the floating bodies as though in a noose. None of them were breathing, but they still appeared to be alive—every so often, a finger would twitch. While they were under the influence of the core, neither the immense pressure nor the lack of oxygen perturbed them.

The body farm also seemed to follow a standard distribution of its captives. Those at the outer bounds of the farm, closest to the edge of the cavern, were the most recently captured and therefore the healthiest. They moved far more often than those nearer the core.

As the victims were slowly pulled towards the egg, their bodies began to change—their cheeks became sallow as moisture and energy were sapped from their muscles and bones. They became more amorphous as they continued to be preyed upon, losing shape and definition as seawater replaced the liquid in their cells. Eventually, the dimming lights within their eyes were extinguished entirely.

The humans watched in horror as one of the smaller tentacles closest to the core slowly peeled itself up from its position lying flat against the stone pedestal. The core pulsed as it accepted the sacrifice the tentacle brought it, consuming and absorbing a distorted pink mass that was only barely recognizable as a former merman.

The gazes of Mermando and the tiburónes hardened as they gripped their sunspears. Hudson knelt over and gagged, horrified to have been a part of the spectacle before him, even unconsciously.

At the tip of the main tentacle that had just fed the core, another orange cable slowly slithered out of the main trunk and began to drift lazily in the current, awaiting the delivery of another victim that it could begin to sap of its life and energy. And it appeared that deliveries were being made constantly.

Each of the several tunnels that ran away from the main cavern was populated by dozens of vampires, flowing to and from the body farm as they delivered food to the core. Little, if any, was being reserved for themselves. Most of the vampires operated higher in the water column, closer to the equator of the cavern, which meant that the seafloor where the bodies were held was relatively unpopulated.

A few of the vampires looked like Hudson had done when he had first been captured—with broken and distorted joints, but still obviously a person. Those who had been in the service of the core for far longer, however, looked like the beasts that had attacked the _Stan o’ War II_ —covered in sea growth and algae, with curving nails that could easily be used as claws. Dipper rubbed the wounds on his arms.

In addition to the vampires tasked with delivering prisoners to the egg, there were some that methodically paced around the outside of the body farm, eyes open and noses held high. They slowly scanned the surrounding environment by sight and by smell, ensuring that nobody was attempting to interfere with the consumption of the people wired into the core. Getting past them would pose a challenge.

None of the vampires, however, appeared to be aware of the crevice that the rescuers had just crept through, or the trench that allowed them to watch the gruesome spectacle before them. The only reason Hudson had known about it had been because of his special mission to infiltrate Pescadorado.

“Dipper,” Mabel whispered into her brother’s ear.

“Yes?” Dipper responded. Both of their eyes were rapidly searching the field of faces, combing desperately for their lost grunkle among hundreds of victims. Some were clearly too far gone, and they wished they could save them all—but Ford took priority.

“I think this is what was causing the weirdness spike Ford was picking up on,” Mabel responded, squinting.

“That seems like a pretty good guess,” Dipper mumbled. He had started looking at the outer ring of the body farm, hoping that Ford would still be in relatively good condition. As his search started to move inwards, however, he began to lose hope. He had no idea how quickly the core digested its victims.

Hudson, Mermando, and the three tiburónes stood impotently to the side as Sam and Pacifica joined the visual search. They simply had no idea what Ford looked like.

Dipper’s eyes danced further and further inwards, faster and faster as his heart rate began to spike, the numbers on his HUD steadily clicking up. Just before his gaze had settled at the base of the stone altar, which was the point at which the shine in the eyes of the bodies began to flicker out, he felt a hand land firmly on his shoulder.

“There he is,” Sam declared, pointing slightly to the left of the altar in the second ring of bodies. From this far away, they couldn’t make out any details about Ford, but it was definitely him—the trench coat and glinting of his glasses in the orange light was unmistakable. Dipper’s searching had completely missed him, as Ford had been obscured by other bodies.

“Ford!” Mabel exclaimed as loudly as she thought she could get away with. She obviously wanted to scream, but knew that it was a decidedly bad idea. She instead slid closer to Sam and bumped him with her hips in excitement, causing him to jump as a smile spread across his face. “You found him! What do we do now?” Her enthusiasm tapered off at the end as she realized that the uncertain part was still ahead of them.

“We go get him,” Hudson answered confidently. “It’s going to take a little bit of luck, but I think I have a way to get us into the body farm.”

“And we will be ready to attack the moment you rescue him,” Mermando replied, shifting his royal trident from one hand to the other. His skin, both human and fish, bore scratches and bruises from where he had forced himself through the narrow gaps in the tunnel, but he was as resolute as ever. “Hudson, what’s your plan?”

“Look at the vampires that are making the… deliveries,” Hudson grimaced, pointing out at the tunnels the hunters were using to access the open ocean, and therefore the surface. As he gestured, a pair of vampires with an older woman between their arms stepped off of a ledge and sank to the level of the body farm.

They approached a freshly available cable at the end of a tentacle and, reaching down, grabbed ahold of it. The light within their eyes burned as bright as fire as they wrapped the glowing rope around the woman’s neck. Her eyes flew open and her mouth opened in shock as the core invaded her mind. For a moment, the glow appears in her eyes, though it soon burned out. The egg could access the minds of the people it was feeding on, simply by touching them. Since they were food, however, there wasn’t much to be gained.

“Even though they’re bringing humans down here, the guards don’t care,” Hudson continued, pointing towards the patrolling vampires. “If you guys act like you’re unconscious, I can drag you over there pretending that you’re sacrifices. Then, we just unhook Ford and get out.”

“That will maybe work for two of us,” Pacifica pointed out. “Even a vampire can’t handle more people than that. And the last thing we want is another one of those guys coming over to help us.”

“Who’s it going to be, then?” Hudson wondered, looking around the group. Everyone had sunspears, and Dipper’s bag of supplies could be carried by anyone.

“Us, obviously,” the twins answered in unison.

“He’s our grunkle, after all,” Mabel pointed out.

“Besides, we have the longest history together,” Dipper continued. “Just like when you were waking up from being possessed by this… egg, it’s better to see someone you know when you come back.”

Pacifica inhaled sharply and bit her tongue. She didn’t like this, but she recognized that they were right. Someone had to do it, after all. She would have preferred that it be Mermando and his tiburónes, but they had other matters to attend to.

“It’s not a great plan, but it’s the one we’ve got,” Mermando observed as he swam up to the vampire and the twins, who were gathering their supplies and wits for the upcoming mission.

“We could also maybe think about it for more than two seconds,” Sam murmured. Pacifica elbowed him in the ribs—the plan was solid. Based on the limited supplies that they had to work with, the only other conceivable way forward would be if they somehow created a distraction—but, since they didn’t know how the core would react, it would be best to go as long as possible before alerting it to the presence of the rescuers.

“Mabel, Dipper,” Mermando whispered, leaning in close to the twins. “Get in there, and get out. Don’t make this any more complicated than it needs to be.”

“We will,” Dipper nodded, tightening his grip on the sunspear. His finger was gingerly placed next to the switch to trigger the flash, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

“Also,” Mermando continued authoritatively. “Once you get Ford away from that thing, you need to get out of here. Take Sam and Pacifica, and make your way back through the crack to the sharks. Your job is to rescue your uncle. Saving Pescadorado is mine.”

“No way,” Mabel responded, glowering at the prince. “You’ve helped us so much, Mermando. It’s only right that we help you too.”

“Right… maybe,” Mermando admitted as he gestured to his tiburónes with a flick of his tail. “But safe? Definitely not. And what matters more to me is making sure that you’re away from this place when the real fighting starts.”

“There shouldn’t need to be any fighting,” Dipper plotted. “If you’re able to cut those tentacles, you’re robbing the core of its power supply. It’s harvesting energy from those bodies. Without them, it won’t be able to control the vampires.”

“I hope you’re right,” Mermando muttered. “All I can do is tell you to be careful.” The prince reached out and took Mabel’s hand. He gently lifted it to his lips and kissed it. The spines on her gloves lay flat as she allowed Mermando the gesture.

Sam, standing to the side resolutely with his sunspear, didn’t react—under the circumstances, romance was the farthest thing from his mind. Pacifica reached out and grabbed Sam’s hand reassuringly. He flinched, but soon returned the goodwill to his childhood friend with a smile.

Mermando nodded at Hudson, who reached behind his head to ensure that his hood was in an easily accessible position. The prince’s eyes spoke to the immense trust that he was placing in the other man—not merely to rescue Ford, but to ensure that Mabel was safe every step of the way.

“We’ll keep it tight,” Hudson answered, pulling the short sword that hung at his hip out of its sheath to make sure that it was easily accessible. It slid back in with a satisfying click. “Once we’re back in the trench with Ford, do what you need to do.”

Satisfied with the vampire’s response, the merman turned to his soldiers and hefted his trident into the air. He pointed at four different parts of the cavern roof, each of which had a prominent niche broken into the rock. The small gaps didn’t open up into other parts of the underwater cave system, unlike the larger tunnels that were being used by the constant inflow and outflow of vampires.

“Pégate a la pared. Corta los tentáculos a mi señal,” he instructed. The tiburónes pressed the shafts of their spears tight against their bodies, bowing as they acknowledged the prince’s orders.

Mermando spun around amongst the group one final time, ensuring that everyone knew their responsibilities, and that they were ready for the operation ahead of them. Then, as quickly as minnows darting away in the shallows, all of the merfolk vanished.

Their tails barely seemed to move as they rocketed up the gray walls of the cavern, scales barely reflecting the orange light that shone out from the core in the center. They almost seemed to change color as they moved deftly upwards, never leaving more than two inches of clearance between their bodies and the stone.

The water was barely disturbed as they advanced, finally seeking shelter in the crevices in the ceiling. They pressed their bodies into the gaps, holding their sunspears behind them to prevent the luminous gemstones from catching and amplifying the light pouring from the egg. They deftly snaked their tails in amongst the shadows of the rock. Even if the vampires discovered that Mermando and the tiburónes were in the cavern, it would take a long time to find them.

Hudson, now acting as the lead escort for the rescue mission, turned towards the twins.

“Here’s the deal,” he whispered, peeking up over the edge of the trench to ensure that Ford was still captured in the same place. The tentacle wrapped around his neck appeared to be slowly separating from the floor. “Stick close to me. Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t panic. And, most of all, do not let those orange tentacles touch you.”

“What if it touches our wetsuits?” Mabel asked, raising her hand before quickly dropping it. It was a good question—the triple-layered, protectively coated suits covered almost every inch of their bodies.

“Not even that,” Hudson cautioned. “I got infected through my clothes too, and that was just by another vampire touching me. I don’t want to think about what it would be like to touch the core directly.”

“Then we’ll be extra careful,” Dipper nodded. He hoisted the waterproof bag he had brought with him into his left hand and turned to where Sam and Pacifica were standing farther down the trench. He took a step forward, only to be jerked back by Hudson’s hand on his shoulder.

“Another thing,” Hudson warned. “I’m a vampire too, so don’t go around flashing those lances without giving me a warning.” He glanced sternly at both of the twins, who nodded their heads in acknowledgement. Hudson released his grip on Dipper’s shoulder, allowing him to walk over to the other humans.

Pacifica and Sam, despite having weapons and spears of their own, had no role in the first part of the rescue mission. Hudson could only cover so many people at once—and the more people there were, the more likely it was that things could go wrong. Just as the other members of the shark convoy were guarding the other end of the crevice through the rock, the two blondes would be protecting the trench, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.

“We’ll be watching,” Pacifica whispered, placing a hand on Sam’s shoulder to keep him from rising up over the lip of the trench and exposing himself to the patrolling vampires. “Don’t make us have to come out there and save you.”

Instead of speaking, Dipper reached out to take his girlfriend’s hand. He placed it against the glass of his mask in a mock kiss, squeezing her fingers in his. The gesture reinforced everything that they had already said to each other, with both their words and their actions.

Mabel turned to look at Sam. She held her sunspear in her right hand, while her left floated loosely in the water. Sam could have reached out and taken it, just as Mermando so assertively had.

“Make it back safe,” Sam whispered instead, his voice barely audible over Mabel’s connection. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Neither do I,” Mabel responded with a weak smile. As resolutely as she had settled on Sam during her rooftop conversation with Pacifica, she was desperately hoping for more reciprocity. Pacifica had told her the truth when she said that love existed in the cracks of life, from cooking, to driving, to grocery shopping. But when the stakes were so high, and Mabel was perilously caught in the drama of both her love life and her kidnapped, body-harvested grunkle, a powerful, overwhelming statement of love would have been appreciated.

Eventually, they would reach the kind of relationship that Dipper and Pacifica had, where simply holding a hand in defiance of the world could speak volumes. But they had not yet had the time to build up that connection.

“Come on,” Hudson instructed, interrupting the thoughts of both Sam and Mabel. “I don’t like the way that tentacle holding Ford is starting to move. Let’s get going.”

Hudson turned and hopped out of the trench delicately, his feet making a faint sucking sound as they separated from the pool of slime and settled down onto the white sand of the cavern floor. He crouched down and stuck his hands out behind him, offering assistance to Dipper and Mabel as they ascended. Now fully exposed before the glowing, pulsing core, their bodies cast long, dark shadows on the stone wall behind them.

Tentatively, eyes scanning the clocklike movements of the other vampires patrolling the body farm, Hudson began to walk forward. He moved at a steady pace, heading directly for where Ford was confined in the distance.

Dipper bent over and pretended to go limp as he felt Hudson wrap his hands around at the arm of his wetsuit. He kept his sunspear pointed down towards the sandy bottom of the cavern, and hugged the waterproof bag containing a wetsuit and masks tight against his chest. He let himself be dragged along, keeping one eye cracked open to mark their progress.

Mabel, on Hudson’s right, wasn’t being dragged. Hudson’s arm was wrapped around her waist, holding her torso close against his as they crept through the layer of patrolling vampires. Mabel, her eyes flitting between the dangerously possessed guards, the massive compelling core, and the fragile bodies of the prisoners, didn’t notice enough to complain.

Steadily, leaving a series of tracks and furrows in the sand behind him, Hudson marched towards the core. Around them, orange tentacles spread out on the seafloor, lighting up the water like currents of cold fire.

Dipper began counting backwards from a hundred to calm himself as he noticed that their path was going to intersect with one of the patrolling vampires. He switched his diamond lance to the other hand, hiding it behind his leg to keep it from the guard’s sight.

Hudson continued moving forward, walking straight ahead and refusing to acknowledge the other vampire’s existence as they advanced. Through his cracked eyelid, Dipper could see that this one was even further gone than the ones that had attacked the _Stan o’ War II._ Its nails were so cragged and long that they had begun to curve, scraping his palms into a shredded pulp. Its eyes, though they burned with the same orange fire as the others, had gone milky from the constant pressure of the water. This guard hunted by smell.

It gave a deep, shuddering inhale as Hudson passed in front of it. At its closest, it stood a mere yard away from Mabel, who watched in open-eyed fear. After a moment, it gave a nod—the gesture a relic of a life long past—and turned aside. It was satisfied with Hudson’s scent as a fellow vampire.

Moving more quickly now that they had passed the patrolling guard, Hudson began to snake his way amongst the outer ring of bodies and orange tentacles that laced along the seafloor. The cables slowly shifted over the sand, confirming that the core itself was undeniably alive. Hudson took special care to avoid the tentacles—possession was not an experience he was eager to have again.

Craning his neck upwards, Dipper watched as they approached Ford. Still, ever cautious, he was unable to get a good look for fear of being spotted.

“Okay, we’re here,” Hudson whispered as he let go of the twins, dropping them to the sandy seafloor. They quickly scrambled to their feet, Dipper frantically unzipping the bag that contained their supplies as Mabel’s hand flew to her mouth in horror.

Ford’s eyes, unlike those of all the other victims, were closed. His expression was one of effort and pain, his glasses sitting askew on his face. Several minute bubbles still clung to the glass of the lenses.

His cheekbones had become extremely prominent as the orange cable wrapped around his neck slowly sapped him of his energy. Having not eaten in days, his clothes hung loosely around his frame and drifted in the steady, tumultuous currents churned up by the movement of the tentacles. His unshaven stubble was rough and gray, but studded through with fields of growing algae. Small white particles moved amongst his hair—sea lice that had begun to take up residence.

His hands were wrinkled and pruned; his muscles frozen in the same violent, desperate grapple that he had been clinging to the gunwale of the _Stan o’ War II_ with when had been pulled under. The contents of his trench coat were scattered on the sand around him, including his Weslee and several pens. His laser pistol lay to the side, long since shorted out.

“Focus, Mabel,” Dipper instructed as he reached into the bag and pulled out the wetsuit. When they cut Ford loose from the core, he would lose all the protection that it offered him from the pressure and lack of air. The twins would need to dress him before they severed the cable.

Thankfully, the wetsuits were just as loose and baggy underwater as they were on land. Dipper passed one sleeve to Mabel, who draped the fabric over Ford and pulled it tight around his legs and arms. When the wetsuit vacuum sealed, it would close up around the entirety of his trench coat and other clothes. It would be uncomfortable, but he would survive.

The orange cable that kept him in place was only wrapped around his neck, allowing the twins plenty of mobility as they suited him up. Mabel briefly ascended into the water and zipped up the back of the suit before pulling gloves on over his shriveled hands. Dipper, sitting on the sand, tore off his boots and replaced them with the barbed flippers.

“Hurry up, guys,” Hudson murmured as he scanned their surroundings. Being surrounded by hundreds of bodies that were floating listlessly in the current as their life was drained by the nooses around their necks would have been unnerving enough, even if there hadn’t been vampires constantly patrolling the farm.

“Just need to put on the mask,” Dipper answered, pulling one of the modified helmets out from the bag. He gently slipped an earpiece onto Ford’s head before sliding the mask over it, careful to avoid touching the coiling tentacle. He quickly tightened the straps of the helmet, and then tapped twice on the front of the mask. With a flushing sound, small motors activated that sucked away the water that was trapped between Ford’s face and the glass.

“Is he breathing?” Mabel asked, looking on with worry.

“Not yet,” Dipper instructed as he picked up his sunspear from where he had left it lying in the sand during the frantic scramble to prepare Ford for his release. “We’ve got to disconnect him first.”

“Are we ready to do that?” Mabel asked as Hudson continued to scan the horizon nervously. He wielded a sunspear in one hand, and tapped on the hilt of his short sword with the other. Combined with the burgundy robe he wore to shield himself from the sunbursts, he appeared prepared for a trek across an expansive desert.

“Just about,” Dipper answered, picking up Ford’s personal effects and tucking them back in the bag. “I’m going to cut the cable, and you need to press the button at the back of his neck to tighten the suit. Then, we’re going to run.”

Mabel nodded as she leapt into the water, swimming above Ford as the ballast tanks in her ankles increased her buoyancy. From her perspective above the prisoners’ heads, they almost looked like wheat in a field. She carefully reached down and placed her finger on the button.

Dipper stepped up to the cable that was bound around his grunkle’s neck. It trailed down his back and draped to the sand, where it connected to a larger tentacle. The tentacles continued to get larger and larger as they merged until they finally reached the core itself.

Dipper angled his sunspear towards the smallest cable, ready to slice through it—there was no need to cut more than they absolutely had to.

“One…” Mabel began, looking down at her brother. They had no idea what would happen once the tentacle was severed.

“Two…” Dipper echoed with a nod. He shifted his glance to where the glowing orange fiber lay half buried in the sand.

“Three!” they both called out together.

Dipper lunged forward, the diamond at the tip of the spear lancing through the membrane around the cable. At the same time, Mabel pressed the button on Ford’s suit and rapidly descended back to the sand as the mechanisms within it adjusted to the pressure and pressed tight against their grunkle’s skin.

In an explosion of orange amniotic slime that rapidly changed to a dull and ashy gray, the tentacle around Ford’s neck dissolved, allowing him to collapse to the ground. Wriggling, the cable continued to dissolve up to the point where it connected with a larger tentacle, leaving an open, oozing wound.

Mabel lunged forward to catch Ford, followed closely by Dipper. They propped their grunkle up as he settled to the sand. He still wasn’t breathing.

Moving quickly, Dipper slammed his fist into Ford’s back.

At the force of the impact, Ford’s eyes flew open and he lurched forward onto his hands and knees, coughing violently as the water from his lungs poured up and into his mask, mixed with murky algae and crimson blood. The mask, detecting fluid on the inside, began to pump it out, sending a pulse of cloudy material into the ocean around them.

“Dipper?” Ford stammered, barely able to choke out the words. The place around his neck where the cable had connected was red and raw, oozing blood and a thin, clear fluid. “Ma…” he continued, glancing up at Mabel. He looked around in confusion, finally settling on a single question. “Where?”

“Underwater, Grunkle Ford,” Dipper answered, his voice crackling over the headset. “Stan’s still at the boat. We’re going to get you back there. We just need you to come with us.” Mabel, standing resolutely, tucked the waterproof bag over her shoulder.

Ford nodded, and tried to prop himself up to his knees. He knew that the twins were more competent than he was now, and that he needed to listen. As weak as he was, he couldn’t even stand. Dipper and Mabel, grunting, knelt down to grab him by the arms.

It was then that a resonant, drum-like, thudding sound began to echo through the cavern. Instantly, Dipper’s head flew back to look at the place where the severed cable had left an oozing sore on the much larger tentacle. The tentacle was no longer there, instead curling back and away towards the core as it reacted to the injury and loss of Ford. It dragged the bodies along with it, floating, fluttering eyelashes bound by their necks to an incomprehensible beast.

Hudson’s eyes flashed around the cavern as he turned back towards the twins and their cargo. Peering through the forest of floating bodies and wavering orange cables, he saw dozens of flaming eyes peering inwards, searching for prey. He had been in their shoes once before, and knew the violence with which they tore apart those who defied their master. Anchoring the balls of his feet into the sand, he dashed backwards in between the humans and the core.

“Get to the damn trench!” Hudson bellowed, pulling his short sword from its sheath. The twins quickly hoisted the dazed Ford onto their shoulders, suspending him between them. His head lolled about on top of his neck, breathing unsteadily as he tried to keep his eyes open.

With a powerful grunt, Hudson placed his hand on Ford’s back and pushed him. Hudson’s vampiric strength had only been used once before, when he was under the influence of the core and lifted Pacifica by her hair as though she weighed nothing. Now, he used his strength to save his friends.

Dipper and Mabel yelped in surprise as Hudson’s push forced them forward, rocketing out of the forest of glowing tentacles and desiccated, dissolving bodies. Ford’s dangling legs dug a furrow into the sand, causing them to slow and stumble. Panting loudly, the twins lifted him again and began to run towards the trench through the encroaching contingent of vampires.

Behind them, Hudson gave a tremendous shout as he lifted both his sword and his sunspear, finger ready on the trigger. The patrolling vampires quickly focused on him, turning away from the teenagers fleeing with their rescued grunkle.

The orange glow lurking in the eyes of the possessed flared up with a new, intense hatred. Around Hudson, the water gave a tremendous shudder as all ten main tentacles lifted up from the ground, jerking the ragdoll-like bodies up with them. A bead of sweat dropped from Hudson’s forehead as the water temperature spiked and a cascading wave of bubbles rushed up from the center of the core.

The core pulsed as the hundreds of captive bodies, floating limply in the current, twisted their faces towards Hudson, opened their mouths, and screamed.


	28. Diamond

The sound spoke of despair, anger, impossible thought, and inhuman suffering. It reverberated about the cavern, shattering rock and assaulting the ears of the defiant Hudson and the fleeing twins. Though the sound came through the throats and vocal cords of the hundreds of prisoners, the being that screamed from within the egg called forth with hatred and intensity, only amplified by the resentment and pain of the instruments through which it acted.

The tentacles flailed in the air, wavering slowly like a massive jellyfish. In the sand that they left behind, thin shards and slivers of glass could be seen where the cables had rested. Since the body farm was no longer flat against the ground, there was nothing standing in between Hudson and the rest of the vampires, who were quickly gaining speed as they charged towards him.

Hudson tightened his grip on his sword and the sunspear as the first vampire approached—the same blind guard he had managed to bypass on his way to rescue Ford. Behind him was a woman, much more recently possessed and far shorter in stature. But, her eyes burned with the same orange fire—she was just as much an enemy as the guard, and as the core itself.

With a grunt, Hudson swung his sword forward into the neck of the guard, biting through the dissolving bones and paper skin. The vampire’s body had begun to deteriorate so much from being underwater that all it took was a single blow to sever his head, and send his corpse tumbling to the sand below in a spurt of blue blood.

Continuing his momentum, Hudson spun around and thrust forward with the sunspear, driving the razor-sharpened diamond into the stomach of the woman. She opened her mouth and bared her pearlescent white fangs, barely affected by the wound. She clawed forward maniacally, driving the gemstone farther into her belly in a desperate attempt to reach Hudson.

Hudson rocked his head forward, causing his lightproof hood to tumble down over his face. Simply by touch, he felt for the switch to activate his solar lance.

The female vampire didn’t have time to react as she exploded from within, dissolving into a cloud of ash that blasted outwards and left a crater in the sand of the seafloor. Eight other vampires were within a critical radius as the diamond sparked with a nuclear flash, a radiating pulse of sunlight instantly dissolving them before the shine was swallowed by the sea.

A few vampires, farther away, merely stumbled backwards as the outer layers of their skin turned to dust. They thrust their hands in front of their faces to protect themselves, losing fingers in the process—their teeth were still plenty sharp enough to rip and to tear.

Hudson felt the spear give a slight pop as the first battery within it burst, the light within the diamond losing ground against the overwhelming orange glow of the core. Hudson flipped the switch back to break the circuit and then reached up with his sword hand to tear off his hood, blinking as he observed the effects of the spear.

He had decapitated or dusted ten other vampires, people that he could have once called friends, but there were still dozens upon dozens more creeping towards him. The tunnels that allowed the monsters to go out and hunt had turned into one-way roads as every vampire raced back towards the central cavern, ready to defend the core from its assailants.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Hudson saw two flashes from the sunspears wielded by Dipper and Mabel as they raced back towards the trench. He winced and braced himself for the impact of the dissolving light, but only felt a slight tingle as the photons cascaded against his face. There was a critical radius around the spears where the bursts were effective before the water consumed the wavelengths of the sunlight produced by the bulbs. Hudson, outside of that radius, was safe.

The twins had dusted five vampires that had turned their focus from Hudson, buying precious time as they charged towards the trench that would allow them to escape. Ford was trying to help as best he could, occasionally kicking against the ground to provide some more momentum, but he was still incredibly weak. At the entrance to the narrow crevice that would provide escape, Pacifica and Sam stood with their spears at the ready, prepared to vaporize or butcher any vampires who decided to follow the twins.

Dipper’s spear flashed again as a vampire leapt into the water and tried to sweep in on them from above. The pulse of light was so intense that the ashes of the vampire scattered across the cavern, raining down on the sandy seafloor in thick, gray flakes of skin, muscle and bone.

The vampire wasn’t the only thing that the solar lance illuminated—in the upper corners of the cavern, the light reflected off of the shimmering scales and shining armor of Mermando and his tiburónes as they emerged from their hiding places with their sunspears at the ready.

Mermando thrust his royal trident forward and gave an enthusiastic, chirping battle cry as they lunged forward, diving through the water like falcons dive bombing their prey.

“Un golpe, una muerte!” he cried, the merfolk syncronized in their movements like fighter jets as they descended towards the core.

Their tight, sinuous forms bobbed and weaved throughout the forest of bodies and swirling orange cables as they struggled to reach the egg at the center. Around them, the tentacles began to bend and arc towards them, trying to make contact and incapacitate them as the core tried to consciously defend itself. The prince and the soldiers were moving far too quickly for a vampire to catch them.

The four attackers braced their solar lances against their bodies, anchoring the metal shafts against their ribs as their formation began to tighten, bringing the swirling circle of blades and death closer to the tentacles that supported and fed the core. The sharpened diamonds glistened not with the light of the bulbs within them, but simply with the reflection of the warm illumination shining out from the egg. The dark form within twitched and writhed.

The bodies attached to the branching cables screamed again as Mermando’s spear made first contact, slicing two feet into the base of a tentacle. Swimming in a tight circle, the tiburónes behind him sliced two feet farther in, and then two feet farther, and then two feet farther. The tentacles were nine feet thick at the base, and it was only at the base that severing them would be truly effective.

Spiraling about the egg, the prince and the soldiers sliced through every tentacle, leaving them hanging onto the core by a mere foot of gelatinous, glowing sinew. Another strike would be enough to completely detach the tentacles, depriving the egg of its food source and condemning it to a death by starvation.

Gracefully, their mission completed, two of the tiburónes parted from their positions within the formation and deftly dodged through the flailing maze of screaming bodies, racing back towards the trench to help escort Ford and the other humans back to the convoy.

Mermando and the final tiburón, the mermaid with flaming red hair cropped short against her head and a shimmering golden tail, protected by chainmail and thin armor plates, descended even deeper around the core, inching closer to the stone pillar upon which it sat.

Their solar lances tore through the last bits of the tentacles, severing one, two, three, four apiece. The figure within the egg trembled again as glowing amniotic fluid began to pour out of the wounds, oozing down the towering altar like blood from a sacrificial ram. The detached tentacles flopped limply to the seafloor below, their orange color fading away as the energy they contained leaked out. The membrane keeping the cables together dissolved, allowing the material within to dissipate into the water. The nooses keeping the bodies imprisoned recoiled, allowing the unconscious forms of the captives to drift freely about the cavern.

Hudson, who had been watching in amazement from his position at the base of the altar, began to sprint away as the detached limbs of the egg tumbled around him—they weren’t capable of possessing him any longer, but they were still more than able to crush him.

The final two tentacles waited enticingly before the diamond spears of Mermando and his most elite soldier. As the blades bit into the final connective tissue, however, the mermaid screamed.

Mermando’s head flashed back, just in time to see the wound in the tentacle she had been about to sever snap shut around her like a Venus flytrap. He watched in horror as her scream went silent and her flesh dissolved, eaten away into a skeleton that soon broke into fragments itself. The eight wounds left on the egg by the successful amputations covered themselves in the same protective membrane as the rest of the core.

The prince looked forward and his pupils went wide as the tentacle before him began to snap shut, dragging the bodies still connected to it by their necks like leaves in the wind. The fewer tentacles there were, the faster those that remained could move. The movements of the cables now were deliberate, trying to ensnare the prince and lash out at the other assailants. If Mermando didn’t act fast, he would be captured within the core and digested just as his finest soldier had been.

He drew back his spear and thrust forward with his trident, feeling the sharpened metal spikes bite into the thick membrane of the core. With a powerful stroke of his tail, Mermando used the shaft of his trident to pole vault himself over the closing wound and away from the core, rocketing through the searching, bending waves of smaller orange branches and grasping, howling bodies. He winced as he spun quickly to avoid two tentacles that were pinching together.

Mermando kept his tail steady as his momentum carried him out of the core’s reach and back up to the roof of the cavern, where he quickly sought shelter in the niche he had hidden in before the strike. He panted, breathing heavily as he bit his lip and clutched his arm—pulling it away, he found his hand slick with blood. A glance at his solar lance revealed that it, too, was stained red. He had escaped from the writhing core unharmed, only to slice himself during the attempt.

With a grimacing chuckle, the prince turned over and peered back down towards the egg and the cavern floor, trying to figure out what to do next.

The ten tentacles that had supported the body farm had been reduced to two—the bodies that had been connected to the eight, rapidly dissolving cables floated listlessly in the water, slowly making their way to the top of the cavern. Within three minutes, those that breathed air would be dead. The merfolk would likely survive, but they were still unconscious and would require intense medical care.

The two tentacles that remained now moved much more quickly and deliberately, raking through the water and searching over the ground like whiskers, feeling for the assailants who had been so bold and foolhardy as to attack it. The being within the egg—or, perhaps it was the core itself—now had a singular focus in seeking revenge by any means necessary, be it by vampire or by direct attack. The bodies still attached to the cables were now more corpses than not, the intense flailing through the water providing more than enough force to snap necks. Still, the core continued to feed off of them, intending to use the bodies as blunt instruments in its search for vengeance.

Mermando’s eyes searched the floor of the cavern for the core’s other quarry, and quickly spotted Dipper and Mabel limping along back towards the trench, as the army of bloodthirsty vampires converged around them, the fire in their eyes spurring them on with a more violent intensity than ever before.

Around the Pines, the two tiburónes who had escaped from around the core before it had recovered were slicing through the vampires as quickly as they could, their diamond lances tearing through saturated flesh and brittle bones. The numbers soon became overwhelming, however, forming into a ceaselessly crashing wave of claws and teeth. One of the soldiers grimaced as a vampire slashed into his arm.

Then, a flash from another sunspear blasted them away, dissolving the immediate wave of monsters and leaving a three inch thick layer of ash on the sand below their feet. Pacifica lowered her dimming lance as she charged forward, racing with Sam to join the fray. Broad smiles briefly flashed across the faces of Dipper and Mabel as their friends ran to the rescue, though their joy couldn’t last for long at the gruesome spectacle around them.

“Keep moving!” Pacifica shouted as she thrusted her spear into the skull of another vampire, punching through its bone and brain matter like papier-mâché. Her feet dug furrows into the sand as she slid to a stop, the tight bun that held her hair steady in the current.

“We’re not going to be able to make it!” Dipper bellowed in response. They were only halfway to the trench, and they had a limited number of flashes left on their sunspears. Even with the assistance of Pacifica, Sam, and the two tiburónes, they weren’t going to be able to hold off the encroaching waves of vampires that were only increasing in number. “We’ve got to do something about the core!”

“We still need to get Ford to safety, though!” Mabel cried out desperately. “We can’t just leave him here on the ground! They’ll tear him apart!”

“Then split up!” Hudson shouted, sprinting towards the group as he tore through the vampires from behind, sending heads flying with both his sword and his spear as he spun maniacally through the water, a maelstrom of blades and blood.

He took a final leap towards Dipper and Mabel, vaulting over the heads of several vampires as he landed on the contested patch of sand. He flipped his hood over his head and lifted his solar lance upwards, flipping the switch and sending another radiating flash of light throughout the water. The creatures around them crumbled, allowing the tiburónes to charge forward and buying a few critical seconds of conversation.

“Dipper, Pacifica, you do something about the core. I’ll go with Sam and Mabel, and we’ll take Ford back to the tunnel. I’ll get back to help as soon as possible,” he instructed as he tore his hood off, wiping away the gray layer of wet ashes that had begun to cake his face.

“Do something about the core?!” Pacifica exclaimed in anger. Her normally calm façade had fallen before the onslaught of teeth and claws. “What does that mean? What are we supposed to do about that thing?” She gestured up towards the egg, whose branching tentacles flailed in the water overhead. It had not yet begun to search the seafloor, satisfied that its vampires could take care of whoever dared to trespass there.

“I… overload…” Ford stammered, struggling to lift his head.

Dipper and Mabel both crouched down next to their grunkle, listening to what he had to say as Pacifica and Sam turned to press their backs against each other, ready to strike in any direction. Hudson turned as well, looking at the stretch of sand that remained between their group and the exit tunnel—the clear pathway that had once been there was beginning to crawl with vampires.

“I didn’t let it in my head,” Ford whispered. “It tried, but I didn’t let it. Metal plate, after all.” He tried to lift a hand to his head to knock against his skull jokingly, but couldn’t bring his fingers more than a few inches from the ground. “I figured some stuff out, though. The goo inside that thing contains large quantities of free energy—electric and chemical power that exists between the cells, not merely within them. Maybe if you’re able to stab into it with the metal end of those spears,” he continued, gesturing towards the solar lances. “You can get an unlimited source of energy, and bathe this entire place in sunlight.” It was remarkable what Ford had been able to pick up from the narrow glimpses of the battle he had seen as he was dragged to safety.

“That wouldn’t do anything about the core, though,” Dipper murmured desperately. “The core isn’t affected by sunlight at all!”

“But the vampires are,” Mabel observed, standing up resolutely. “We could get rid of _all_ of the vampires, which would give us enough time to get Ford out of here and come up with another plan to chop off those last two tentacles.”

“Of course,” Dipper realized, shaking his head in disapproval at himself. “How did I miss that?”

“I’m smarter, but that’s not important,” Mabel continued rapidly as she placed her hand on the switch of her own sunspear. “What matters is that we do this _now._ Is everyone ready to move?”

No one voiced any objections, though the two tiburónes were being pressed back towards the group by the horde. Every so often, they would buffet the vampires back with their tails, but as their numbers became greater and their formation denser, it became less and less effective. The disjointed limbs of the monsters gave them a greater reach than the soldiers expected, making mistakes more likely.

“Sam, get ready!” Mabel called out, causing the blonde boy to quickly step next to Ford. With a grunt, he helped lift the injured man onto his shoulders, carrying him with Mabel just as Dipper had been doing. “And Hudson, close your eyes!” Hudson, realizing what she meant, crouched down and pulled his hood tight over his head. “Now!”

Sam and Mabel both hoisted their solar lances to their air and flipped the switches, sending power coursing to the bulbs within the diamonds. The combined might of their lights radiated further away than a single spear could on its own, dissolving a larger radius of vampires into ash. The vampires that were just outside of ground zero covered their eyes, wincing as the light steadily, though not fatally, ate into their skin.

Dipper took advantage of the distraction and grabbed Pacifica by the hand, dashing through a narrow corridor in the horde and running towards the stone altar. As they progressed, he used his spear to slice at the knees and ankles of the vampires, sending them tumbling impotently to the ground. Only sunlight or a headshot was suitable for killing a vampire—excepting garlic and wooden stakes. Still, it would take them a long time to recover from such grievous injuries.

“How exactly are we going to do this?” Pacifica asked, shouting to be heard over the cacophony around them, even through their headsets. She looked up in wonder at the flailing, searching tentacles of the core above them. It was the fear of being snared by the tentacles that kept them on the ground, even amongst the possessed army—at least being nicked by a claw wasn’t an instant kill.

Dipper glanced backwards before he answered, slashing at the legs of another vampire. The majority of the horde was pursuing the larger group of Hudson, Sam, Mabel, Ford, and the two tiburónes. Dipper and Pacifica had made it to the other side relatively unnoticed.

“Simple,” Dipper replied, smiling as he tried to put on a confident act. “We go up there and we stab the shaft of my spear into the top of the core. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, we run like hell.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Pacifica replied as she reached down to her leg and pulled her explosive knife free from its sheath on her thigh, just to have an extra weapon ready. “I’m more worried about getting past the bodies.”

She gestured upwards with her spear, pointing at the waving field of bodies and orange cables above them, drifting in the current like the branches of a hanging tree as they searched.

Dipper’s eyes searched the forking, wavering ropes, quickly finding their access route. Mermando and his soldiers had been able to sever eight of the ten tentacles, four on either side. Where the fallen limbs were dissolving on the seafloor below, there were large gaps in the core’s defenses.

“There,” he declared simply, gesturing with his head towards the open water. “Don’t make any noise, and don’t touch anything orange.” Pacifica nodded—she had already known that, but arguing would be fruitless.

Dipper held his sunspear in both hands while Pacifica dual-wielded, the two of them kicking off of the sandy seafloor and into the water. Keeping close to the sides of the stone altar that held the core, they snaked up a channel that had been burned into the rock by one of the tentacles.

Ahead of them, as they approached the core directly, the luminous, compelling orange glow began to take up more and more of their field of view. As they slid along the surface of the egg, they both peered through the translucent membrane.

There was undeniably something within the core—a dark, indiscernible shape that twitched and shifted about, but didn’t seem to resemble any ordinary man or animal. Neither Pacifica nor Dipper had the faintest clue as to what it was. Even in all of Dipper’s research, he had never stumbled upon reports of an entity such as this, with so large an embryonic stage, that possessed the ability to possess and control minds, and that required a constant flow of energy through the sacrifice of living things. It truly was a demon.

Disgusted, Pacifica switched to a standing position as she hovered in the water a few feet over the core. Dipper did the same, quickly spinning his sunspear around so that the shaft was pointing towards the egg. The shadows reflecting on their faces made it appear as though they were dancing on fire.

They both held their breath as Dipper lowered the metal shaft of the diamond-tipped weapon and contacted the core. However, instead of penetrating the translucent membrane, it merely depressed the surface of the soft egg. The core buckled and bent, but did not allow the rod to pass through it. In fact, the entity seemed wholly disinterested in what was happening above it, as though it did not regard the teenagers as a threat, or had simply failed to notice them.

“What now?” Dipper mumbled just loud enough for Pacifica to make out over their connection.

“Could you stab it with the other end?” Pacifica asked, before another thought crossed her mind that made her face light up. “Could we exorcise this thing like we did with Hudson? Could we put it in the diamond and kill it like that!?” Dipper glanced up at the sharpened gemstone curiously, but then shook his head.

“It would definitely stab through this film,” he explained. “But I don’t think the exorcism thing would work. In Hudson, we were taking something out of his body that wasn’t supposed to be there. But this demon, as awful as it is, is technically in the right body. That would be the equivalent of taking the Hudson out of Hudson.”

“But could you do it, though?” Pacifica begged. If they could eliminate the core here and now, they wouldn’t even need to worry about the vampires.

“If we had more time, maybe,” Dipper answered. “But I would need to modify the incantation, and we don’t have time to do that research right now. They need our help now,” he continued, pointing towards Mabel and the others.

They were almost three-quarters of the way to the trench. Once they had their backs against the wall, they would be able to hold off the encroaching horde more effectively. Now, however, they were being swarmed from every side, and Hudson and the two tiburónes could only do so much. Every so often, Hudson would take shelter and a sunspear would flash, but they were rapidly running out of batteries.

“Then let’s help them now,” Pacifica swore as she pulled out her explosive knife and flipped upside down.

“What are you doing?!” Dipper asked in a panic as his girlfriend’s face swung closer to the pulsing, bulbous core. Her blonde hair, bound tightly in a bun, drooped heavily in the water.

“I’m going to stab this thing,” she answered resolutely. “And you’re going to put that spear in the hole I make. Don’t worry—I won’t touch it.” Dipper opened his mouth to respond, but before he was able to, Pacifica had already drawn her hand back.

The blade of the knife slid into the core as though it was made of warm butter. The shape within writhed about, now paying immense attention to the assault from above. Before the demon was able to strike back, however, Pacifica pressed the button to activate the weapon.

With an explosive burst, the carbon dioxide canister deployed first, pushing away the fluid within the egg and creating a void of air within the membrane. Then, hissing violently, the liquid nitrogen sprayed in and around the cavity, forming ice crystals within the core. Pacifica slammed her flippers into reverse, pulling up and away from the core and removing her blade. Loose flaps of the translucent barrier floated loosely in the water as the sea rushed into the newly created space.

Grunting with effort, Dipper tore off the battery pack and slammed the metal shaft of his solar lance through the ice and into the warm, swirling liquid within the egg. He quickly released the weapon and backpedaled, waiting to see what would happen.

At first, the sunspear only flickered dimly. Then the lance began to sink deeper into the core. With a sound like thunder, it brushed up against the dark shape within the egg, causing the fetal demon to kick and to scream, releasing a burst of energy that visibly coursed through the metal handle, throwing off red and orange sparks. Dipper and Pacifica turned away, throwing up their hands to protect themselves from the sheer power coming off of the weapon.

For a moment, the bulb within the diamond burned so perfectly that a pulse of light brighter than the sun itself refracted through the gemstone and radiated across the cavern, burning away every shadow that lurked in every crack and crevice.

Before even a second had elapsed, however, the bulb gave a shark crack and exploded, shattering the diamond at the tip of the lance into a thousand glistening fragments—the power the demon contained was simply too great for the circuits to handle. A deep, resonant scream rang out across the cavern, though neither of the two teenagers atop the core noticed.

As the pulse of sunlight faded away, Dipper and Pacifica lowered their hands from their faces and turned to look at the destroyed spear. The wound Pacifica had stabbed into the core began to close back up, the egg none the worse for the carbon dioxide and liquid nitrogen that had been injected into it. The metal shaft of the lance, now warped and bent by the energy that had coursed through it, sank into the liquid of the core and was immediately digested. Dipper panted heavily as he fumbled for the seaforged knife on his leg—he no longer had his sunspear, the weapon specifically designed for slicing through vampires.

“Look out!” Pacifica shouted, extending the barbs on her gloves and latching onto Dipper’s arm, the pinprick quills lancing through his wetsuit and penetrating his skin. He winced in pain, but Pacifica wasn’t about to let go. The two remaining tentacles, with all of their cables and the bodies attached to them, were beginning to curl up and around the two teenagers, imprisoning them within a net of corpses and orange cords.

Pacifica slammed her hands and feet against each other, remembering the lesson that Stan had given them about the wetsuits before they descended. Instantly, the ballast tanks on her wrists and ankles filled with reserve air kept in tiny cartridges within the wetsuit. From the outside, it looked like small balloons were attached to her limbs.

Her buoyancy now increased, the blonde shot up towards the ceiling, dragging Dipper with her. After a moment, he realized what was happening and activated the emergency floats on his own suit. As his wrists and ankles inflated, they began to ascend to the roof of the cavern even faster.

Pacifica wielded her solar lance in one hand, spinning it like a baton as she sliced through the two inch thick cables that crept too close to them. Dipper slashed with his knife, but was unable to do more than nick the glowing tentacles. The bodies set free by Pacifica’s slicing turned about loosely in the current, tumbling about unconsciously in the turmoil.

After fifteen seconds of ascension, they found themselves rapidly approaching the cave ceiling. They both braced themselves for their impact against the rock, turning around to look back down into the cavern.

They slammed into the ceiling with a resonant thud as the air was forced from their lungs. Panting, choking, they tried to move as they regained their breath, only to find it impossible—once the emergency buoyancy system had been deployed, there was no deactivating it until they were back on the surface. Neither of them were strong enough to force the inflated balloons down from where they held them pinned against the ceiling.

They glanced at each other in horror as the tentacles drifted mere feet from their faces, the green and bloated faces of the bodies suspended from them floating in the current, broken necks lolling about at unnatural angles. A sharp grinding sound grated against their nerves as the shattered bones scraped against each other.

Despite the gruesome spectacle, it appeared that the tentacles weren’t quite long enough to close the final gap and reach them. They couldn’t move from their position on the cavern roof, but they were at least safe from the torturous grasp of the egg. They were trapped—either the core would eventually figure out how to get them, or thirst would take them first.

Their eyes began to search the floor of the cavern, looking for Mabel, Sam, Ford, and Hudson, as they were now in need of rescue themselves. It was only now that they had the opportunity to realize what their brief, overwhelmingly powerful sunburst had done.

It had been bright, but it had shone out for less than a second. It dealt immense damage to all of the vampires, but had not been enough to destroy them. Instead, their limbs and faces fell away in bursts of ashes and dust as they continued to shuffle towards the defiant group battling their way towards the trench, haunting orange lights shining out from within empty eye sockets. Their skeletons and muscles jerked forward unsteadily, propelled by a single purpose.

“No…” Pacifica murmured to herself as their eyes finally settled on Mabel and the others. The tentacles, almost seeming to follow her gaze, began to contort and bend down towards the cavern floor, dragging their bloody fruit along with them.

Sam supported Ford all by himself, holding the doctor on one shoulder as Mabel crouched next to a crumpled pile of burgundy cloth, shaking it vigorously. He wielded his sunspear with one hand, swinging it about vigorously and using the momentum of the gemstone to tear into the horde of vampires. The tiburónes were beginning to slow down as the monsters scored steady, small hits on them, draining them of their energy and strength.

“Hudson, come on, Hudson,” Mabel pleaded insistently. “It was just a little sunlight. Get up. We’ve only got a few more feet to go.” She pulled back the hood, and her hand flew to her mouth in shock and horror.

Hudson didn’t reply as he reached up and touched his face, feeling his fingers sink deeply into his flesh as he excavated channels of meat filled with blood and ash. There had been no warning when the sunburst rang out, and he had barely had time to get his hand up in front of his face before the light had washed over him.

Before he had become a vampire, he had been burnt by fire several times. But this sensation was so incredibly different, as though he was tied down and acid was being dripped onto his skin, a drop at a time, searing away not just his flesh, but who he was as a person.

His gloved hand had protected the center of his face, but stray beams of light had eaten at his cheeks, exposing his molars and sharp canines through windows of dripping tissue. His forehead had been stripped away to the skull, leaving the bone stained red. His beard had instantly evaporated, vanishing more completely than even a close shave could accomplish.

“I… I’m a vampire...” he murmured to himself as he started to scratch furiously at his face, scraping away the gray dust. Mabel grabbed onto his wrists, using all of her strength to try and stop him. “I’m a vampire, I’m a vampire, I’m a vampire.” Before he had been caught in the sunburst, his vampirism had almost seemed incidental, another change in his life that he would deal with in turn. But now, it became apparent that he no longer had the same life he did before he was bitten. He was new. He was different.

“You’re a vampire, and that’s okay,” Mabel consoled, doing her best to keep from gagging at the mutilated face of a boy she still cared for deeply. She wanted nothing more than to bandage him and give him all the time in the world to heal, but their defenses couldn’t hold for much longer. “Can you move?”

Moving feebly, Hudson kicked his legs and twitched his fingers. The rest of his body, which had been protected from the burst by his suit, was still intact. Since the light had not damaged his brain, he was still capable of moving. He swallowed, wincing at the pain, and nodded.

“Then we need to go,” Sam instructed as Mabel helped the vampire to his feet. Sam still had the semi-conscious Ford draped over his shoulder and could do little to help—still, he reached out and pulled Hudson’s hood over his head to prevent him from receiving any more damage.

Sam lifted his spear and flicked the switch one last time, sending a radiating burst of sunlight across the sand and vaporizing another contingent of vampires. Regardless of how many of their brethren they saw disintegrated into ash and dust, they continued to charge forward mindlessly. Sam grimaced as he lowered his lance—that had been his last battery.

Mabel carried Hudson, and Sam carried Ford as they both began to trudge forward, walking and swimming as best they could to reach the trench and safety. Though the injured men kicked and helped as best they could, it didn’t amount to much—Ford was still weak and barely conscious, and any movement on Hudson’s part sent electric bolts of pain through his entire body.

Sam wielded his diamond spear with one hand, bashing through the monsters that stood between him, Mabel, and salvation. He had long since stopped aiming for the head, and was simply trying to deal as much damage as possible. Mabel was barely able to hold her spear and Hudson at the same time, leaving her to futilely jab at any vampire that charged them.

They were fifty feet away from the trench, but it might as well have been fifty miles. Still, they marched forward, begging for rescue from somewhere, anywhere against the onslaught. As they waded through the ash, they heard twin screams echo out from behind them.

Sam and Mabel turned around as their two tiburónes were finally overwhelmed, dragged back into the shuffling mass of crumbling, relentless vampires. Surrounded by a sky of orange eyes, they howled until the teeth penetrating their necks and the claws digging into their flesh rendered them silent. Some of the vampires were unable to resist bending over and immediately beginning to eat.

Sam and Mabel were defenseless. Sam flicked the switch on his spear, desperately hoping for another burst of light—but none appeared. They were surrounded by a wall of vampires, who crouched and growled as their wet, red tongues ran across their pointed teeth.

Then, almost like a miracle, the horde stopped advancing. They froze in place, without a muscle moving. Sam and Mabel looked at each other fearfully, unsure of what was happening until they looked up and found their faces illuminated by a fresh orange glow.

One of the remaining tentacles from the core was slowly arcing down towards them, reaching out with grasping fingers and twisting cables, seeking out their necks and aiming to add them to its body farm. The vampires had been called off for the moment, only responsible for keeping the new captives from fleeing while they were properly imprisoned.

Sam’s eyes grew wide with panic as he turned around rapidly, dropping Ford to the ground. He mentally apologized as the older man grunted at the impact. He then grabbed ahold of Mabel’s shoulder and threw both her and Hudson on top of Ford, before sheltering them all with his body.

In the dim lighting beneath his shadow, he could see Mabel’s open eyes shining with tears. Sam tried to smile reassuringly, concealing his wince as he prepared for the searing touch of the core’s cable around his neck.

Instead of an orange light, however, two rapid bursts of sunlight radiated through the water and evaporated the vampires that stood between the captured group and the trench. Sam’s head shot up in wonder as he saw a blue-green flash race down the cavern wall and swirl around him a cascading wave of water and light.

Mermando raced like lightning through the shower of ash, sweeping in a circle around Mabel, Sam, and the wounded. Using his royal trident, blood pouring from his wounded arms, he sliced the legs off of the vampires that had formed a confining wall around the group. Moaning, the half-ashen vampires tumbled to the ground defenselessly.

“Get to the trench!” he commanded authoritatively as he spun his solar lance around deftly. Thrusting it up into the air, he flashed the final burst and pulverized the horde that had already begun creeping forward again. 

Sam shot to his feet, pulling Mabel and Ford up along with him. Mabel looked over her shoulder and saw the tentacles arcing towards the prince, staring him down like the vicious, snapping heads of a hydra. Merely touching them was enough for the core to render him possessed or paralyzed.

Coiling his tail beneath him, Mermando locked his spear into place against his upper arm and sprang into the water. A spiraling vortex of diamond and metal, he sliced through the encroaching cables, sending the limp corpses hurtling off into the cavern, some sinking to the bottom, and some floating to the top.

At the other side of the cavern, the other remaining tentacle, replete with new branches and new cables, began to bend up and around, arcing towards the furiously battling prince.

Mabel tore her gaze away from Mermando and knelt down to help Hudson to his feet. As she wrapped her hands around his shoulder, though, his hand shot up ang grabbed ahold of her wrist.

Slowly, grunting with the effort, malformed face dripping with ash and blood, exposed bone glistening red and white, the vampire hauled himself to his feet and grabbed ahold of his sword, white knuckles gripping the hilt so firmly that the metal warped.

“You heard the fish,” Hudson muttered, turning back to face the core. His shadow, sword in hand, was cast long across the stone walls of the cavern by the luminous orange egg. “Go!”

Then, Hudson sprang into the water with a terrifying, otherworldly howl, using the blade of his sword more as a blunt instrument as he smashed through the ranks of the possessed vampires, crushing them into flaky pulp. His eyes, stormy gray, blazed with a heat and passion far more powerful than that of the orange fire in the eyes of his enemies.

Sam reached out and grabbed ahold of Mabel’s shoulder, turning her away from the hauntingly beautiful spectacle of the merman and the wounded vampire doing battle against an overwhelmingly powerful, malevolent entity that they couldn’t hope to understand. She grabbed ahold of his hand in response, squeezing it tightly as she picked up one of Ford’s arms and the two began to sprint towards the trench.

The vampires that had been blown aside by the sunbursts from Mermando’s lance were beginning to creep back into their path. The crumbling ash of so many dead monsters had begun to accumulate on the sandy floor of the cavern, mixing together to form a kind of cement that grabbed at their feet and slowed them down. The material clumped its way into the paddles on their flippers, preventing the spines from extending into the water.

They were close enough to peer into the dark, welcoming abyss of the trench and the narrow crevice in the rock beyond it that would lead them to safety when a sharp crack sounded from behind them. They kept their heads down, forging ahead.

The fiery tentacles moved as quickly as whips—Mermando and Hudson had been so successful in mowing down the remaining small tentacles that the demon was now able to use those that remained as precision instruments, calculating precise strikes instead of vainly searching and filtering the water. After a brief moment of calm, the cables surged into conscious motion, seeking out the prince and the vampire.

Sam and Mabel, dragging Ford between them, watched in stunned silence as both Mermando and Hudson were flung through the water over them, slammed against the rock wall of the cavern by the bloated bodies that the demon was using as a blunt instrument. The two warriors, now unconscious in the water, began to sink down to the cavern floor, where waiting hordes of vampires began to gather. Hudson’s sword clattered uselessly to the ground—Mermando clung to his sunspear and trident, but they were impotent in his hands.

Sam and Mabel were alone. The tiburónes had been torn apart and eaten, Hudson and Mermando were unconscious, and Dipper and Pacifica were pinned to the roof of the cavern in their suits, watching the spectacle below them play out in horror.

A tremor echoed through the cavern as cracks formed where they had impacted, fractures racing from the bottom to the top of the wall. Beginning with small pebbles, but quickly gaining steam, an avalanche of rock and stone tumbled downwards, massive boulders and chunks of cooled lava filling the trench and blocking the exit under a mountain of rubble.

Sam and Mabel slid to a stop and looked frantically around—they had worked so hard for so long to drag Ford to the crevice, only to have it blocked off at the last moment. It may have been possible for them to take him out through one of the other tunnels, but they could never fight their way through the encroaching horde of vampires, and the active eyes and arms of the core above them.

Mabel lifted her sunspear into the water and flicked the switch, using the last of her batteries in a final futile flash. A few vampires finally crumbled into dust under the pressure of the light, but their dissolving bodies were pushed relentlessly forward by the other monsters now sheltering behind their ashen corpses. The waterproof bag hanging from Mabel’s shoulder slid to the ground timidly.

Sam turned towards Mabel, looking into her eyes as tears formed in his own—the mission hadn’t been supposed to go like this. The core had found them far too quickly, and the number of vampires had been far too great. Sam chuckled to himself—they should have known how immense the concentration of weirdness was based on the readouts from Ford’s computer. What made them think that nine people could take it all on by themselves?

Ford, now fully unconscious between the two teenagers, slumped to his knees, his arms slipping loosely off of their shoulders. It was for the best that he wasn’t awake.

As the howling, snarling mass of vampires, cloaked in ash and algae, with distorted limbs and curling claws crept forward, Sam took Mabel’s hand. Tears ran down each of their cheeks as he squeezed her fingers. The glory of what could have been vanished before them, swallowed by the sea in a cavern of monsters and madness.

Then, Sam felt his blood run cold as he saw a shimmering reflection in Mabel’s eyes. His hand snapped up, snatching out of midair the pulsing orange cable that had been whistling towards her.

He howled in pain as the demon instantly invaded his mind, the incomprehensible consciousness of the creature within the egg pushing into his heart, forcing his thoughts to the side as it poured its soul into his own. As strong as Sam was, he was like a stick being tossed about in the rushing, roaring rapids of a chaotic river; every impulse of his brain turned up and over, examined for its usefulness, and then discarded. He squeezed the tentacle more tightly, every muscle contracting out of instinct and panic as the demon examined the body of its new vessel, rifling through his arteries and veins.

Amidst the madness in Sam’s mind, there was warmth—a pleasant fire that promised refuge from the storm in which he found his heart and soul, a port of certainty amid the flood. He took a step towards it, willingly, and felt the demon worm its way into his subconscious.

A single orange flash burned in his eyes as Mabel gave a hating howl and, with her own expended sunspear, sliced through the cable. Sam felt the connection sever and the fire recede from his mind, lost, vanishing away from him as the tentacle he held onto turned into a loose cloud of fluid and tissue. His muscles, all at once, went limp.

Sam collapsed, unconscious, and Mabel stood alone. The vampires around her screamed.

The brunette anchored her feet in a wide stance over both her grunkle and Sam, holding onto her solar lance with both hands. She knew that she couldn’t defeat all of the dozens of vampires who still crowded around her, much less the flaming core that still had two major tentacles, and a forest of bodies from which to draw power bound to it.

But she would try—she has just witnessed Mermando, Sam, and Hudson all broken down and beaten to rescue Ford. Pacifica and Dipper had gone to battle the core, and never returned—the only signal she had received from them had been the single pulse of light that had grievously wounded Hudson. Mabel could only assume the worst.

Strangely, it didn’t really matter—there was going to be no escape for her either. There was nothing to worry about but the feeling of her spear slicing through the bodies of the beasts who had cost her everything.

As the howling vampires charged forward, Mabel swung her lance and savored the feeling of the sharpened gemstone penetrating the broken, decaying bodies of the vampires around her, an ocean of flaming eyes pushing forward relentlessly, unceasing.

She could barely take a step, so anchored was she in the muck and mire of the accumulated corpses of the vampires, melded together into cement by the seawater. Still, every monster that came to her tumbled down, either decapitated, maimed, or cleaved by her precise, desperate strikes.

For a brief moment, the bodies began to accumulate around her like a perverse fort, a wall around her and two men she loved, who were slumped over unconscious on the ground. The vampires merely scaled the bodies of their fallen brethren and struck from above.

Mabel’s muscles were weakening, and she was slowly feeling herself fade as the vampires kept coming.

She was neither scared nor surprised when one monster finally managed to reach a partially broken arm past the diamond and grab ahold of the metal shaft of her spear. She felt the metal bend and warp under the creature’s vampiric strength, finally tearing the weapon away from her completely and throwing it across the cavern.

Above her, the orange cables of the core began to snake back down as she fumbled for the explosive knife strapped to her thigh. As she lifted the blade, holding it out tentatively against the flaming eyes peering over the edge of the small circular mound of decaying, ashen bodies, she felt for the button to detonate the weapon.

Finding it, she plunged the blade into the stomach of the nearest vampire, falling as it pushed her backwards, tumbling on top of her. Mabel tried to bring her hand back to punch the monster as it clawed as her wetsuit and mask, but found that both her legs and arms were mired in the accumulated ash of the battlefield. Lying flat on her back, all she could so was press the trigger.

The vampire didn’t even have time to give an expression of surprise as it was blown apart from the inside, a violent burst of carbon dioxide forced inside its chest cavity that was desperately seeking for a way out.

As the ashes of the final vampire rained over her like snow, Mabel tried to move—she couldn’t even sit up. She could only watch as the liquid nitrogen poured impotently from the hollow tip of the knife, causing ice crystals to form in the water and a penetrating chill to settle into her bones that not even the wetsuit could compensate for.

Mabel had no weapons, no allies, and no way to move. She glanced to the side and saw Sam’s face and tousled blonde hair behind the glass of his mask. His eyes and lips twitched as a thought danced across his mind, almost as though he was having a pleasant dream. Mabel smiled, and wished she could hear what the dream was.

Orange eyes, lurking above moaning mouths glistening with teeth and blood, formed a circle around the fallen girl. Above her, the thick tentacles and fine cables of the core began to descend, seeking to add more bodies to feed the living, pulsing nightmare in the egg.

Amidst the flaming cords, Mabel could see the sky.


	29. Sever

Dipper and Pacifica both glanced at each other in fear as the water below them began to swirl, shift, and change. Amidst the fatal orange glow of the writhing core appeared trails of blue, red, and green, a rainbow of colors as the ocean rippled as though a stone been dropped into it.

The egg itself seemed unsure of how to react to the change in the sea around it, unable to understand what was happening as microscopic rifts began to open in the space above it, and fragments of the midnight blue sky, studded with stars, began to shine through the water. The luminous moon shone in through the mysterious portal, casting a silver glow on the floating bodies that had been cut loose from the core, and the metallic outline of the structure apparating into the cavern.

Dipper, eyes going wide in excitement and realization, gave a scream of exultation as the green hull of the _Stan o’ War II,_ captured within a bubble of air and energy, teleported into the cavern. The air that surrounded it radiated outwards in a single pulse, forcing the ocean aside and blasting away the vampires that had surrounded Mabel and the unconscious Ford, Hudson, Sam, and Mermando on the ashen mire of the seafloor.

No sooner had the air blasted out and created a void in the ocean, though, than the immense pressure from the water rushed back in with the force of a tsunami, forcing the ship up towards the roof of the cavern where Dipper and Pacifica were trapped. Any vampires who were unlucky enough to find themselves caught in the chaos of the teleportation were either severed in two, or shredded by the cascading wave of seawater.

In the center of the mad, swirling crash of air and ocean stood Stan, manning the helm of the _Stan o’ War II._ He spun the wheel back and forth rapidly, trying to stabilize the ship as it was thrown up and down by the water pressure and the air bubble that had been brought with it. He had tied himself to the control console, and his eyes darted from his instrument readouts to the scene around him as he tried to take everything into account.

The older man, with eyes and hair of gunmetal steel, had rewritten the code of the teleportation engine and mounted it in the belly of the craft. The hatch leading into the hull was held open by a rope, and radiant blue and orange light shone out from it, overpowering the violent glow of the core with a cool restraint, and a luminous orange that spoke more of citrus and sunlight than blood and bile. The engine pulsed, receiving commands from a console that Stan had installed in the wheelhouse of the ship. 

The hull of the _Stan o’ War II,_ tossed about like a toy in a hurricane, smashed into the orange tentacles that were still attached to the core with cacophonous, roaring noise, tearing off bodies and cables through sheer physical force. The core lashed about quickly, trying to grab ahold of the object that had just appeared in its cave, but finding its every advance rebuffed by the bulk of the metal ship.

Dipper and Pacifica watched in amazement as the deck of the ship rose up towards them. The air bubble that it had brought with it, after blasting away the monsters surrounding Mabel, had immediately carried the craft to the ceiling.

As it rose, the stunned bodies of those who had been victims of the core, both human and merman alike, collapsed on the ship with a thud. Some of them immediately gasped for air, eyes flying open in full consciousness for the first time, spewing water and vomit, while others simply slumped over. The merfolk on the deck flopped around, trying to dive back into the water.

The teenagers both winced as the bubble reached them, forcing away the water that had kept them pinned against the ceiling. Screaming, they fell from the stone roof to the deck of the ship, groaning as the air was forced from their lungs. With a hissing sound, the emergency functions on their wetsuits shut off as the air balloons in the wrists and ankles deflated. Grunting, they turned over onto their backs and looked up.

They felt their blood run cold as they saw the roof of the cavern quicky approaching—the _Stan o’ War II_ may have been a good ship, and strong enough to survive an initial encounter with the core, but it would be dashed against the rocks by the thunderous tumult of the waves around them. Even the strongest ships couldn’t survive the sheer power of the earth. If the teleportation engine was damaged or broken, there would be no returning to the surface.

Glancing to the side, Dipper saw water beginning to pour over the gunwale and onto the deck of the ship as the air pocket collapsed, washing around the bodies of those both alive and dead. Then, he winced in surprise as he found himself bathed in blue and orange light. Soon, the dichromatic colors were supplemented with red and green as small gaps began to appear in the water around them, and stars began to shine through. The water around the ship calmed as the _Stan o’ War II_ began to teleport back to the surface.

Grunting, Dipper immediately shot to his feet, slipping on the wet deck and scrambling to grab ahold of the railing. He peered over and looked at Mabel, still immobilized on the seafloor and surrounded by vampires. Though the creatures’ numbers had been lessened by the onslaught of tidal force, they were beginning to approach her and their fallen comrades again. It was difficult to hold off so many of them, but there only needed to be one to kill.

“Grunkle Stan!” he called out desperately to the man who clung to the wheel, furiously typing numbers into the console as he brought the ship back up to the surface. “We can’t just leave Mabel down here!”

“If we stay, we’ll be dead too!” Stan bellowed commandingly. Just as when he had saved the twins from an onslaught of zombies, his tone brooked no debate. “We’ll come back! We just need more air and a better angle. Throw your Weslee overboard!”

“What?” Dipper asked confusedly, though his hands were already fumbling at the pocket of his wetsuit. He loved his Weslee dearly, and it had proved an invaluable tool on many occasions, but he wasn’t about to argue with Stan if losing his Weslee was necessary.

“Now, Dipper!” Stan shouted. “And you, blondie! Get some long ropes and tie yourselves to the railing!” Pacifica nodded affirmatively, scrambling up and sprinting into the hull of the ship, searching for a rubber tote with rope in it. She took the small staircase in a single bound, diving into the room shining with the energy of the teleportation engine.

Grabbing ahold of the slim device, shining with glass and abalone metal, Dipper slammed it into the tumultuous water. The _Stan o’ War II_ was superimposed halfway between the cavern and the surface, the difference demarcated by glimmering red and green borders that separated the surrounding stars from the sand. The Weslee slipped between two patches of stars and began to sink to the seafloor.

Dipper, glancing downwards, locked eyes with Mabel, who stared up at the ship in awe and astonishment. From this far away, there was no chance their headsets were going to be able to connect.

“Voice communication, full radio broadcast!” he shouted into his helmet.

Both of the twins heard a click as the power of the broadcast increased, but Dipper’s view of the madness in the cavern was quickly being obscured by the serene waters of Hogsty Reef and the shining moon far above. The broadcast may have gotten to Mabel from across the chaos of the cavern, but there was no way it could have made the journey from the surface. Dipper opened his mouth and began to speak.

“We’re c… bac…” was all that made it to the brunette, crackling over the headsets as the _Stan o’ War II_ finally disappeared from the cavern entirely, slipping away in a flash of blue and orange light. The air bubble that it had brought down with it was compressed against the ceiling, leaving the seafloor untouched.

Mabel glanced around as the currents in the water began to slow, and things returned to how they had been before. Dipper and Pacifica had been rescued from their confinement on the roof, but the five people mired in the ash and muck of the vampires below were still vulnerable.

Above her, the orange tentacles of the core started to fan out, covering as much space within the cave as they could so it could quickly react to the ship if it appeared again. However, they left the bottom of the cavern relatively empty, since the _Stan o’ War II_ had previously appeared near the ceiling.

Mabel watched as Dipper’s Weslee drifted to the seafloor, landing in between two of the dissolving tentacles that Mermando and the tiburónes had severed in their initial onslaught. The device glinted in the orange light of the core, shining out like a star in the darkness. It impacted the sand silently.

Suddenly, a crackling sound came over her headset as Sam moaned next to her, twitching his fingers as he curled up into the fetal position. He was unconscious, but it appeared that his dreams had turned to nightmares. He started to sink deeper into the ashen cement, his mask now half-stained by charcoal slime.

Looking over his broad shoulders, Mabel could see the luminous, fiery eyes of another wave of vampires slowly creeping forward. Many of the monsters in the cavern had been rebuffed or destroyed by the air brought down by the _Stan o’ War II,_ but more were creeping in through the tunnels all the time, bringing fresh limbs and sharp teeth.

Dipper, Stan, and Pacifica were coming back. She was sure of that, and she was the only one awake to protect her friends until they returned. But to do that, she had to move.

Grunting with the effort, she slowly began to pry herself loose from her position within the mire. Opening and closing her fists, she attempted to move the spines on her gloves to create space between her limbs and the concrete. Water began to rush into the miniscule gaps, loosening the stranglehold that the mass had on her body.

Finally, with a triumphant scream, she lifted her right hand free of the seafloor, swinging it around in the water as chunks of ash flaked away from her glove and wetsuit. Reaching back down, she grabbed her left wrist and pulled, extracting her arm from the slain corpses of the vampires. The ice crystals that had formed on her body broke away, shimmering in the water like snow.

From behind her, she heard a vampire shriek as it began to advance in earnest, scrabbling through the water to reach her with its curled and yellowed nails. She glanced back, and winced as the beast placed its foot on Ford’s body, using it as a launching pad to reach her.

Mabel fumbled for the explosive knife that had drifted to her side. It no longer had the canisters filled with carbon dioxide or liquid nitrogen necessary to blast the vampire away from her, but it was still a sharp blade—that was all that she needed.

Gripping onto the hilt, she spun around with a grunt—her ankles and backside were still stuck in the ash, but her torso was flexible enough to provide her with mobility. With a sickening squelch, the tip of the blade sank into the temple of the vampire, lancing past the bone and immediately causing the monster to go limp. Immediately, the skin of the creature began to flake away as it disintegrated into ash, covering Mabel’s wetsuit with yet another layer of weight.

Now, however, she would not let it disadvantage her. As the gray and green brain matter began to leak out, and the orange fire in the beast’s eyes dimmed and vanished, Mabel used the knife for leverage to pull herself up and out of the swampy mire, flinging herself up into the water and liberating herself from the killing field. Reaching down, she quickly wiped away the cement that had accumulated on the lower half of her body, allowing her to move freely and quickly.

For now, Ford and Sam seemed relatively safe. They were slumped over in the ash, and keeping a very low profile. In the distance, however, the much more prominent bodies of Hudson and Mermando continued to drift down to the seafloor, almost within reach of the vampires that had gathered beneath them in anticipation.

Mabel prepared to rush over to them, and grabbed ahold of the hilt of the knife that was still embedded in the skull of the vampire she had slain. When she tried to pull it loose, however, the metal snapped. She looked at the useless hilt in confusion, the blade forever lost within the sinking cement of the vampire.

Peering at the point where the weapon had broken, she could see small cracks that had formed in the surface of the metal. It had obviously not been intended for use after the nitrogen and carbon dioxide had been discharged—the nitrogen had been so cold that ice had formed along the blade, seeping into microcracks and forcing them apart, weakening the weapon.

Mabel tossed the useless hilt aside in frustration. She needed a weapon to save Hudson and Mermando from being torn apart—with her bare hands, she couldn’t deal as much damage as needed to be dealt. The small wounds she could inflict wouldn’t even slow the vampires.

She glanced down at Sam, hoping to find his explosive knife exposed on his thigh. However, it had been strapped to his right side, and it was his right side that was currently embedded in the ash. She could have pulled him loose, but it would have taken far too long. Ford wasn’t mired in the muck nearly as deeply, but he didn’t have a knife. Anything useful that had been in his trench coat was inaccessible.

Desperately, Mabel spotted the waterproof bag sitting next to Sam. They had used it to carry Ford’s wetsuit and mask—perhaps there was something else in it that she could use. She flipped over and grabbed ahold of the prominent zipper, pulling it open and exposing the interior of the bag.

Her hand plunged inside, feeling the cool, smooth glass of the surplus mask. Then, triumphantly, her fingers wrapped around the handles of the orange scissors that Dipper had brought for Pacifica. The blades glistened as she pulled them out into the water—they weren’t much, but they were better than nothing.

Mabel spun the scissors around in her hand, trying to figure out the best way to hold them. After a moment, she settled on having the blades face backwards towards her wrist and interlacing her fingers through the holes in the handles. Her slashes would have both stability and power behind them.

Rising up into the water, she glanced back down at the unconscious bodies of Ford and Sam. She could only hope that they would remain hidden. If the vampires or the tentacles of the core spotted them, she wouldn’t be able to get back in time to prevent them being taken prisoner.

Then, her headset crackled again, and Mabel found herself thrown to the ground as a cascading pulse of air washed over her, forcing back the tide of the sea. The blue, red, orange, and green shimmer of teleportation energy shone out around her as the shadow of the _Stan o’ War II_ was cast against the cavern wall by the glow of the core. Turning around, Mabel watched in joy as the ship reappeared in the water, this time much closer to the bottom, roughly where Dipper’s Weslee had fallen. Though the mast of the boat almost reached up to the level at which the tentacles of the core were searching the water, the craft had once again escaped notice.

Stan stared up at the orange orb in wonder, astonished at its sheer size and the malevolent light that shone within it. Cautiously, he pulled back the jacket he was wearing to reveal one of Ford’s laser pistols strapped to his hip. He slipped his brass knuckles back into his pocket—as good as he was with them, they wouldn’t be much use against the demon lurking within the egg.

The deck of the ship was now clear of the bodies that had fallen upon it—they had been tossed into the water at the surface. Any humans who were still alive could easily swim to the sandbars, especially with the assistance of the merfolk. As the air bubble around the ship flexed and gave against the pressure of the water, the sea rushed back in and began to lift the ship back towards the surface of the cavern. More bodies caught in the flux began to accumulate on the craft.

Mabel smiled as Dipper and Pacifica vaulted over the railing of the ship and dove back into the roaring waves, their wetsuits now perfectly functional. White and blue cords had been lashed around their waists and tied to the railing of the ship, allowing them to pull themselves back on deck easily.

Moving quickly, they raced down towards Mabel. Behind them, the _Stan o’ War II_ was rising up into the forest of orange cables, severing more and more of them as it ascended. The remaining tentacles moved even more quickly, angry at the repeated insolence of Stan and the ship he piloted. The lightweight cord that bound Dipper and Pacifica to the ship, however, was extremely long—they wouldn’t find themselves dragged upwards until it was time to teleport to the surface again.

“Mabel!” Dipper shouted as he approached his sister, wrapping her in an embrace and spinning in the water. He knew, however, that they didn’t have much time to talk. “Grab onto the rope and pull yourself onto the ship. We’re getting out of here!”

As he talked, Pacifica swam down and grabbed ahold of Sam’s left arm. She slammed her flippers and gloves into reverse and began to steadily free him from the two feet of ashen cement that covered the seafloor. He groaned in discomfort, but didn’t wake up.

“No,” Mabel answered sternly, pushing her brother away and pointing towards the slumped, immobile body of their grunkle. “You two get Ford and Sam up to the surface. I’m going to go rescue Hudson and Mermando. Come back down and get us.”

“Are you crazy?” Dipper asked, throwing his hands in the air at Mabel’s defiance. “They knew what they were getting into when they came here! We’ll come back down and get them too, but we need to save you three first. At least come with us and get a rope!” As he shouted, Dipper reached back and yanked on the cord that bound him to the ship.

“And if we wait to come down again, they won’t be here to save,” Mabel retorted calmly. “They’ll be torn apart, the vampires will overrun the cavern, and we’ll never get back here again. I need to do this, Dipper. Please.”

Dipper glanced over at Pacifica worryingly as the blonde hoisted Sam onto her back, his limbs hanging loosely in the water. Ford turned over in the distance, groaning as he started to wake back up. Pacifica nodded.

“Fine,” Dipper grumbled, reaching down and unstrapping the explosive knife that was bound to his left thigh. “But you’re going to need something more than those scissors.” He passed the blade to her, which she took with a grateful smile.

“I promise I’ll be safe, Dipper,” she answered. “Just get Sam and Ford to the surface, and then come back for us.”

“Prove it, then!” Dipper shouted out of both anger and motivation as Mabel glanced towards Pacifica and gave an appreciative nod. “Let’s see who’s the alpha twin!”

With that, they both split off in different directions. Mabel kicked herself up into the water and began to lance towards the gathering mass of vampires beneath Ford and Hudson, while Dipper raced for the body of Ford.

Pacifica watched as her boyfriend slipped his arms beneath his mentor and lifted him free from the sucking mire of the ashfall in a single motion. Ford grunted as Dipper hoisted him onto his shoulders, filthy water sloshing along the inside of his mask. Together, along with their evacuees, they took off back up towards the _Stan o’ War II,_ which was rapidly approaching the cavern ceiling.

Several of the more tenacious cables had wrapped themselves around the railing of the ship, trying to slow it down as it ascended. Most of them, however, had been severed in the chaotic maelstrom of waves and teleportation energy. The two main tentacles that were connected to the core no longer looked like branching trees, but instead angry, bloody earthworms.

Dipper and Pacifica deftly slipped between the remaining tentacles as they ascended, hauling themselves up and over the gunwales and back onto the deck of the ship. It was now covered with even more bodies of those who had been taken prisoner by the vampires under command of the core, who were now being evacuated to the surface as survivors.

Stan glanced back over his shoulder and gave a sigh of relief when he saw Ford, Sam, Dipper, and Pacifica. Those were the people he cared about—he knew how much Mermando and Hudson meant to Mabel, but he had every intention of ascending to the surface and immediately deactivating the teleportation engine. His family would be safe, and it would take far too long to reconnect the engine for returning below to be feasible.

Then, he gave a sharp inhale as he looked back again, and realized that Mabel was still missing. Dipper looked up at him plaintively and shrugged—Mabel’s defiance had been passionate and just. Stan, peering out of the wheelhouse, saw his niece swimming towards a horde of vampires with glinting weapons in each hand. He glanced up at the cavern roof and swore under his breath—Mabel was enough to make him come back, no matter the cost.

He slammed the lever connected to the teleportation engine forward, causing a high pitched whine to reverberate throughout the frame of the ship and the air bubble it was contained within. Colorful streaks of energy began to stain the water around them as they all returned to the serene surface, finally completing the teleportation with a pop that sent a luminous flash of light out into the cavern below.

Mabel blinked as the burst of the teleportation faded away, and the swirl of water within the cave once again began to fade. She paddled forward ferociously, using the current to her advantage as she swam for Mermando and Hudson. She held the explosive knife Dipper had given her in her right hand, while the scissors were clenched in her left.

Both Hudson and Mermando had been steadily floating through the water, sinking down from where they had been thrown against the wall by the tentacles—they fought boldly, but had been too slow to avoid being struck by the bodies the core was wielding like clubs. Hudson was sinking to the bottom much more quickly than the prince—as a merman, Mermando was much more neutrally buoyant.

Mabel swung towards the unconscious vampire, who now dangled a mere four feet over the waiting claws of his brethren beneath. They could have easily leapt up and grabbed ahold of him, but many of the vampires were missing limbs or muscle due to being mangled by the storm of the _Stan o’ War II_ or being caught in the flashes of light from the solar lances.

Mabel, however, had no such limits. With a symmetrical push of her arms, she lifted herself up into the water directly over Hudson before diving down into the mass of vampires beneath him. As the orange eyes followed her, she thrust forward with her explosive knife and pressed the button to trigger it.

Just like the air that the _Stan o’ War II_ brought down with it when it teleported, the carbon dioxide pouring from the tip of the knife created a massive bubble in the water, blasting away the mountain of teeth and limbs that had been waiting for Hudson. As the vampires stumbled backwards, Mabel spun the knife around and buried the hilt of it in the sand, leaving the blade pointing up.

Then, anchoring her feet on a rare bare patch of sand, she pushed up and away from the horde. She extended her arms and caught the falling body of Hudson on her shoulders, lifting him back up into the water column and carrying him away from the danger beneath.

Glancing back, Mabel heard the vampires scream and growl as their prey was stolen. Several of them tried to kick off from the ground and swim after her in pursuit, only to find that they either lacked the limbs or were mired in the cement made from the ashes of their fallen friends.

A hissing sound sliced through the water as the liquid nitrogen deployed from the knife, billowing out and around into the mass of vampires. The furious moans were cut short as their vocal cords froze and their muscles turned to ice, immobilized as the seawater around them plummeted in temperature. Even the powerful heat being given off by the two-tentacled core on the stone altar was unable to revive them.

Mabel smirked to herself as she continued to look around the battlefield. Hudson moaned on her shoulder, and his fingers started to scrabble as he looked for his weapon. Blood and ash continued to stream away from his face, but he didn’t seem to have the energy to scratch it anymore. He could barely lift his arms, much less maneuver in the dark, waterlogged cloak that had protected him from the flashes of the sunspears.

To her right, as she was ascending, Mermando was continuing his much slower descent towards the horde. Even unconscious, he was still gripping tightly to the shafts of his trident and spear, which were pulling him headfirst towards the bottom of the cavern. His hair billowed out around him as the snarling mass of yellowed nails clawed upwards, hoping to wrap their wrinkled hands amongst the brown locks and drag him to their teeth.

Mabel glanced up with a grimace—she had hoped to stash Hudson in one of the niches at the top of the cavern, where the tiburónes had hidden before unleashing their initial strike on the core, but she didn’t have enough time. The most she could do was place him higher in the water so that the vampires couldn’t reach him—it was now safer at the top of the cavern than the bottom, since so many of the small cables had been torn off of the egg’s tentacles by the maelstrom of the _Stan o’ War II._

Spinning around, Mabel tossed Hudson upwards and anchored her feet against him. She mentally apologized as she kicked against his chest, forcing him up at the same time she rocketed back down towards Mermando. The vampire coughed as he was jolted upwards before beginning to descend once again.

This time, Mabel didn’t have the advantage of the knife to immobilize many of the vampires at once. Additionally, Mermando weighed much more than Hudson did—with the added mass of his tail, it would be extremely difficult to push him back up into the water even with the help of her gloves and flippers. She squeezed the handle of her scissors tightly, pressing the blade against the wrist of her wetsuit as she approached the prince. The metal of her improvised weapon flashed in the orange light of the core.

With a mad and imposing scream, she swung around in the water, sinking feet first into the mass of vampires just as one of the creatures finally got its hands in Mermando’s hair. Mabel’s weight squashed the softened skulls of two of the monsters as she knelt down, digging the blade of the scissors into the eye socket of the vampire that held onto the prince, feeling the eyeball pop and squish as the vitreous fluid gushed out, and the orange light flickering within died.

Mermando gave a shout of pain as, in its dying moments, the vampire tore out a thick patch of the merman’s hair. Instantly, the prince was awake, rapidly spinning around in the water as he got a sense of his surroundings. His eyes flashed to Mabel, to the core, and to the horde. It was all the information he needed.

His tail pulsed powerfully as he forced himself farther down into the mass of vampires, swinging with his diamond lance as he once again severed the legs of the monsters around him before blasting them away with a powerful wave of water. Coiling around, he then shot up from the seafloor and wrapped his arms around Mabel’s midsection, carrying her up and away from the beasts below.

“What’s going on?” the prince asked as they ascended out of danger, staying close to the cavern wall and out of reach of both the vampires and the remaining cables of the core. “What happened?”

“You got knocked out,” Mabel answered, reaching out as they swam by Hudson. She barely managed to grab onto the cloth of his robe, dragging him up and along with them. She knew that they had a limited amount of time before a fresh contingent of swimming vampires got here, or the core figured out where they were, but for now they were safe. She looked out into the cavern as the tentacles started to drift throughout the entire space, instead of staying at the top as they had previously.

“Did we get Ford?” Mermando asked as he too turned around and looked at the battlefield, now swamped in a mire of ash. He swallowed as a sad frown crossed his face—there were still clumps of vampires crouched around the bodies of his fallen tiburónes.

“Yeah,” Mabel replied solemnly. “The trench got covered in a landslide, but Stan is teleporting in and out of the cavern with the _Stan o’ War II_ and taking us to the surface.”

“What?” Mermando asked confusedly, looking at the brunette on his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “The boat can teleport? How does that work?”

“It’s a recent thing,” Mabel admitted, before a smile crossed her face. “It’s probably easier to show you than to explain it.” She pointed down to where the ship had previously apparated within the cavern, and Mermando’s gaze followed her finger eagerly.

At the base of the stone altar, once again where Dipper’s Weslee had fallen, patches of starlight began to shine through amidst borders of red, blue, orange, and green as the _Stan o’ War II_ teleported back in. Mermando’s eyes grew wide in astonishment as the lines of the ship appeared, finally apparating with a burst of air that sent the remaining vampires on the floor of the cavern scattering away.

Mabel raised her hand and waved as the ship began to rise to the stone roof once again, passing through the waving field of orange tentacles. As the metal hull of the craft kept ascending, more and more of the cables began latching onto the railing, coiling around the bars as tightly as they could.

The deck of the ship was empty of bodies yet again, thrown overboard on the surface by Dipper and Pacifica. Neither Sam nor Ford were anywhere to be seen—they had likely been cast off on the sandbars of Hogsty Reef as well, in the company of the mermen who guarded the entrance to Pescadorado. As the boat ascended, more and more people began to fall to the deck as they were pulled in by the cascade of water around the air bubble. The vast majority of people within the cavern—those who were still alive, at least—were being rescued, albeit inadvertently.

Dipper and Pacifica waved back at Mabel as they rose up to meet her. They were still bound to the ship by their ropes, ready to dive off and help in rescuing Mabel, Mermando, and Hudson if they needed to. However, as Mermando began to swim towards them, smiles broke out on their faces as they realized that they could all escape alive. As efficient as their wetsuits had been at letting them live and move underwater, Mermando’s natural affinity for it was their salvation.

The prince hadn’t gone more than thirty feet, however, when he jerked backwards, pulling Mabel and Hudson along with him as he pressed tightly against the wall of the cavern. A violent whistling sound reverberated through the water as the rise of the _Stan o’ War II_ was suddenly stopped, pulled down towards the core by the dozens of small orange cables that had affixed themselves to the railing.

The egg almost seemed to laugh as one of its remaining, ten-foot-diameter tentacles coiled up and around the _Stan o’ War II,_ wrapping around the hull multiple times and causing Dipper and Pacifica to dive in opposite directions for safety. The laughter of the egg was replaced by the horrific groaning and squealing of metal, the frame of the ship buckling under the immense pressure of the tentacle. Ripples and bends began to appear in the craft as it was crushed, the teleportation engine within the hull flashing a panicked signal of blue and orange as water began to leak through the joints.

As the sides of the ship crumpled in like a tin can, the air bubble around it began to dissipate. Cold, pressurized seawater began to stream in over the gunwales, washing around the bodies that had fallen to the deck, and forcing Dipper and Pacifica to cling to the railing for safety, trying desperate to avoid touching the smaller cables that had originally slowed the ship enough for the core to catch it.

Stan fought violently with the wheel of the ship, trying to coax the engines into pulling away from the core. The water was churned into a white, foamy blender as they kept pulsing, and kept losing the battle. Finally, Stan let go of the wheel.

The _Stan o’ War II_ swung wide, pulled back freely by the core as Stan reached for his brass knuckles. Then, grimacing, he tucked them back into his pocket and unholstered the laser pistol on his hip. Unclipping himself from the wheel, Stan slid to the support beams of the wheelhouse and aimed directly at the core.

The pistol buzzed and hissed as Stan pulled the trigger, sending bursts of light and energy into the air pocket surrounding the ship. When they hit the roaring wall of water, they slowed and darkened, but carried on towards the core. Upon impact, they dissipated and fizzled impotently against the orange membrane, not even leaving a darkened spot behind.

“I’m not about to lose to an egg with worms for arms,” Stan grunted as he reached beneath the regular control console for the _Stan o’ War II_ and tore lose the power cable that serviced the navigation instruments. He then flipped over the pistol and pulled out the rechargeable batteries that powered it, tossing the cartridges aside and exposing the metal leads within the handle.

As Stan touched the console power cable to the leads of the pistol, he connected the weapon directly to the generators that provided electricity to the ship. The lights on the pistol burned brightly, and then popped, overloaded by the power. Though the bulbs may have broken, the gun itself did not.

Stan closed an eye as he aimed back towards the core and pulled the trigger. This time, the air crackled like lightning as overcharged pulses of blue energy lanced from the gun, arced through the water flawlessly, and impacted the orange membrane. The demon within screamed as the lasers ruptured the surface, leaving behind massive open sores that were charred and blackened around the edges. The tentacle around the ship began to tighten, and rivets popped from their sockets with sharp clicks.

Stan readjusted his aim—instead of shooting the core, he instead shot at the joint where the tentacle wrapped around the ship connected to the egg. He sent out six shots, in bursts of two.

All of them landed on target, slicing through the membrane and severing the tentacle from the core.

The gelatin-like tissue shifted and squelched as it tumbled to the seafloor, the orange light within it fading away to a decaying gray. The thick cable lashed around the center of the _Stan o’ War II_ gave way, releasing the ship and tumbling to the ground with a crash, crushing several vampires beneath its bulk. The smaller cables around the railing stayed connected, maintaining their grip on the metal rods even as they were ripped away from their main tentacle. Still, they were harmless now, and soon began to dissolve in the roiling seawater.

Stan quickly clipped himself back to the wheel and revved the engines as he steered towards Mabel, the prince, and the vampire. They all remained pressed against the wall of the cavern, breathing heavily as they processed how close of a call the _Stan o’ War II_ had just escaped from. Hudson, still on the brink of consciousness, grumbled discontentedly as Mermando swam forward to meet the ship. Now, only one tentacle remained.

Dipper and Pacifica used their feet to quickly knock away the remaining tentacles that were clinging to the railings, and then leapt into the water. Behind them, the ship continued its tumultuous ascent to the roof of the cavern, where it would soon have to return to the surface.

On the stone altar behind them, the core oozed and pulsed, waving around its one remaining tentacle in search of anyone it could grab ahold of to drain of their energy. Only a few bodies attached to it continued to live, many of them having had their necks snapped in the battle. The vampires on the cavern floor scrabbled about impotently over their comrades, unable to swim well enough to catch up to the ship or the prince.

“Mermando, you’re awake!” Pacifica shouted enthusiastically as they approached the prince, who carried Mabel, who carried Hudson. Mabel immediately passed Hudson off to Dipper, who hoisted him over his shoulder obligingly. The vampire’s marred and mangled face was already beginning to heal, albeit slowly.

“I am awake,” Mermando declared, releasing Mabel and lifting up both his solar lance and his royal trident. The bleeding from his arms had slowed to a trickle, though the scabs were fragile and could be torn like paper. “But I can’t go with you.”

“What?” Mabel asked, turning to the prince in a panic. “Mermando, we have a way out here. We need to take it and get to safety.”

“You should do that,” Mermando replied, grimacing as he reached up and felt the bare patch where the vampire had ripped out his hair. Once he had a chance to style it, it would barely be noticeable, but now it felt bald and exposed. “But I can’t leave. Not yet.”

“Why not?” Dipper replied irately, glancing back at the _Stan o’ War II._ They only had a few more seconds of conversation before they needed to turn back to catch the next teleportation to the surface.

“That’s why,” Mermando answered, pointing towards the core with his lance. The remaining tentacle flailed about madly, but the dark shape within the egg was beginning to slow. The blasts that had been torn into the membrane were healing much more slowly than the wounds that had been inflicted by the tiburónes. “I came here to defeat that thing and to save my city from vampires. Now, it’s almost dead. There’s one tentacle left. If we don’t finish this now, then it’s going to fortify this cavern and become stronger until it’s unstoppable.”

Hudson, slumped over on Dipper’s shoulder, grumbled as though to confirm exactly how bad that would be.

“So,” Mermando continued, “I’m staying here to get rid of the core once and for all. You can stay with me if you like, but I won’t blame you if you go.”

“Come on, Mabel,” Dipper announced, quickly turning away and backpedaling towards the ship. Pacifica, however, remained behind. “This isn’t our fight anymore.”

“It never was,” Mabel replied in a whisper. “We came here to rescue Ford because he was our family, but we agreed to take down the core because of what it means for Mermando. You know how much of a threat this thing poses, Dipper—not just to the merfolk here, but to the world. Even Bill never really possessed more than one thing at a time. What does it mean that this demon can control the minds of an entire army?”

“You’re seriously staying behind again?” Dipper shouted. “We’ve gotten lucky the three times we’ve been down here before. We may not be lucky enough to come save you again.”

“But if I come with you now, then Stan wouldn’t even try to save Mermando. You know it, and I know it. If I stay behind, not only can we defeat this thing, but you can come back and save us both. We’ll get in, do the job, and wait for you to come back. The second we see you, we’ll dive onto the deck, and head back up to the surface.” Mabel stared at her brother emphatically. Severing the last tentacle was the difference between a successful mission and a failure.

“There’s a lot of ‘ifs’ there,” Dipper mumbled, glancing towards his girlfriend.

“Some ‘ifs’ are worth chasing,” Pacifica assured him softly, knowing that she was giving Dipper permission to leave Mabel behind yet again. As strong as the brunette’s feelings were for Sam, she had been right when she said that her feelings for Mermando wouldn’t just go away. But the love that was propelling her forward now was not romantic, but that of two friends working together towards a goal that was bigger than both of them.

“I don’t even have a knife to give you this time,” Dipper said as he turned back around, holding Hudson tight against his shoulder. The vampire was of no use now, and he would at least be safe on the surface. It was close to midnight, after all.

“Don’t worry,” Mermando grinned as he passed Mabel his solar lance. The battery pack was melted and warped, all of the charges expended, but the polished diamond glistened in the orange light of the core as sharply as ever. Mabel held onto the spear tightly, as Mermando shifted his grip on the trident. “I promise I’ll keep her safe. Just make sure you come back to get us.”

Dipper looked at Mermando sternly, not even needing to say anything to convey the trust that he was placing in the prince’s hands. Dipper and Pacifica both drifted backwards, pulled by the tightening ropes around their waists.

Pacifica cast one last hopeful glance back at Mabel before turning around and ascending back towards the _Stan o’ War II_. Pulled up by the ropes, their gloves and flippers, and their own muscles, they alighted on the deck just as the starlit night and multicolored ripples began to swirl around them.

Mabel winced as the ship vanished in a pulse of light—she didn’t envy the shouting that Stan was certainly doing once he realized that she had stayed behind yet again. She and Mermando only had until the ship came back to sever the tentacle—and the ship would be descending immediately once it had cast off its cargo of liberated captives.

Suddenly, she found herself behind swept along in the water as Mermando grabbed her by the waist and gently rolled over, allowing her to ride on his back as he circled the roof of the cavern. She held onto his shoulders, careful to avoid exacerbating the still fresh wounds on his arms. She held the gemstone at the end of her spear far away from his body.

As they swam around to the side of the core that still had the tentacle on it, Mabel assessed the dangers they still faced. The core pulsed more quickly now, and the black mass within it was moving and twitching regularly. The open sores torn by the blasts from Stan’s pistols had not yet healed, and thick amniotic fluid was constantly leaking out onto the surface of the egg.

The only remaining tentacle had been pruned of many of its smaller branches, but a good many of them still waved about with their harvest of bodies. The cables moved more actively and precisely than ever, consciously controlled by the demon within the core. The vampires crawling on the ashen, murky bottom of the cavern no longer posed a threat—their numbers had been too greatly reduced, too many were wounded, and Mermando was simply too fast.

“What’s the plan?” Mabel whispered in the prince’s ear as he rolled to the side, deftly dodging an orange cord that had snapped towards them as quickly as a whip. It was amazing to Mabel that Mermando could react that quickly—and even more so that Sam had snatched one of the cables out of midair to protect her, when he had only seen its reflection.

“The cable is too thick to be cut by one person in one blow,” Mermando instructed. “It’s going to take both of us at once.”

“How are we supposed to get that close?” Mabel asked worriedly. The tentacle was beginning to reach up towards the roof of the cavern, trying to cover every angle of approach that it possibly could in order to protect itself.

“I’m going to swim, and you’re going to fall,” Mermando proposed, tilting his head to the side. “I’m big, shiny, and obvious. The tentacles are going to go for me. If you drop down, you should be able to pass through the branches with no trouble. We hit the cable at the same time, and then I pick you up and we get out of there.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Mabel whispered. She could easily see the core going for her instead of Mermando, or the prince accidentally getting snagged by one of the tentacles. He had barely been able to escape earlier, when they had been moving much more slowly. The idea seemed like the equivalent of diving through a tree without touching a leaf.

“I’m sure that it’s the idea I’ve got,” Mermando retorted. “If you’ve got a better one, I’d love to hear it. But whatever you come up with, come up with it quick.” Mabel bit her tongue and looked down at the egg—she wasn’t sure that she had anything better.

Then, her eyes went wide as she saw another, much thicker cable come whistling towards them, churning up a violent current in its wake. Mermando rolled to his right, and Mabel felt her grip slip from his shoulders.

She tumbled off to the prince’s left, holding onto the solar lance as the tentacle sliced the water between them, leaving a bubbling ripple of superheated water. Now separated, she cast a glance back at the merman and nodded—they had one shot at his plan, and his plan it would be.

Mabel angled herself downward, holding herself as straight as she possibly could, her legs and arms pressed tightly together with the sunspear extending down beyond her feet. The spines on her gloves and flippers rippled madly, propelling her forward and down towards the base of the remaining tentacle.

She kept looking forward, keeping an eye out for any tentacles or cables that started to chase her. For the most part, however, they did seem to be pursuing Mermando, who was putting on quite a show. Mabel couldn’t resist looking.

The prince darted and weaved amongst the cables, creating a massive disturbance in the water as he sliced through any of the cords that got too close. His royal trident glistened golden as he rolled to the side and continued his steady plunge toward the egg. The wounds on his arms had been reopened, and the steady streams of blood pouring from them decorated the spiraling water around him like crimson ribbons.

He was so different now than he had been when Mabel had first seen him in the Gravity Falls Public Pool. Then, he had been lost and uncertain. Now, he was confident and self-assured, doing what was best for his family and his people even at risk to himself. He was just as shirtless as ever—though his caramel tan was now accompanied by rippling muscles, a sinuous tail, and even more majestic hair.

Mermando was in his element—this was him at his best, and Mabel could still think of nothing but Sam. Mermando would always hold a special place in both her heart and her mind, but Sam promised the possibility of a future as equals, of people embarked together on the common mission of life. He was a boy who was just a guy. A boy who loved her pig. 

Mabel deftly rolled the side as a cable lashed towards her, slicing through it with her diamond lance as she approached the base of the tentacle. Mermando, seeing how close Mabel was getting to the oozing, pulsing core, snaked in between the orange cords and lifted up his trident, swinging madly as they both came together at the egg in perfect synchronicity.

Mabel spun her sunspear like a baton, the white shine of the diamond reflecting against Mermando’s golden trident. She tucked her legs beneath her and did a somersault in the water, extending the lance and gaining momentum as she lifted her arms. At the last moment, she shot her legs outwards to brake, and brought the glistening gemstone down on the tentacle like an axe.

The demon in the core screamed madly as Mermando’s trident and Mabel’s spear each tore through the protective membrane that surrounded it, cleaving apart the gelatinous tissue within. The final tentacle broke away from the core and began to tumble to the seafloor.

Mabel froze, watching as the core started to react. The wound that they had just opened quivered, and the protective membrane around the edges began to creep in as the egg attempted to heal. However, robbed of the body farm that had provided the immense amounts of energy necessary to maintain the core, it could not recover.

With a silver, blue-green flash, Mermando darted over the collapsing tentacle and grabbed ahold of Mabel’s midsection, pushing her up and away from the throbbing, trembling egg. The prince was concerned with getting her to safety, but she was too caught up in the spectacle unfolding before her.

The pulsing within the core started to get faster and faster, though the shape within it began to move less and less. The open wounds on the surface of the egg started to leak more and more as the membrane collapsed, venting material into the surrounding water that soon turned a sickly brown and sank down to the ash fields below.

As the fluid inside the egg diminished, the core itself started to shrink, the edges of the injuries pressing together and sealing the liquid that remained inside. Mabel felt her blood run cold at the prospect that the core was merely entering a stasis, ready to reactivate if it should ever find the necessary strength.

Looking down at the cavern floor, Mabel watched as all of the vampires slumped over, the luminous fire within their eyes extinguished. She wasn’t sure if they were truly dead or merely unconscious, but they didn’t seem to be dissolving into ash.

Then, the orange light within the core went nuclear. The egg collapsed in on itself, burning away all of the remaining energy that it had harvested. The fiery shine filled every crevice of the cavern, banishing all of the shadows. The water around the core pulsed inwards and outwards, sending shockwaves of energy rocketing throughout the underground space.

Mabel suddenly felt herself sweating. She looked up at the corner of her mask and saw that the outside water temperature was climbing—it was already over ninety degrees, and showed no signs of stopping. The water around the core itself was already boiling, the water sublimating into a harsh and scalding gas.

She glanced around, looking for anywhere that she and Mermando could hide from the superheated water. The trench and crevice that they had entered through had long been covered by the rockslide, and no new passageways had opened up. Their only hope was that the _Stan o’ War II_ would return for them, but even Mabel wasn’t sure about how the ship would handle the scalding water.

A sharp, rumbling sound rocketed throughout the cavern. Mabel’s eyes shot to the ceiling, where the rock was beginning to fracture and rupture under the pressure being generated within the cave. The energy was forcing its way to the surface, breaking its way through the crust of the earth to seek release. However, by the time it finally burst, the conditions within the cave itself would have become fatal.

Mermando turned around, his upper body now covered in a fine sheen of sweat and oil, trying to shield Mabel from the expanding bubble of boiling water. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he lunged forward, as two things happened at once.

Amidst the burning orange of the imploding core, the prince had spotted the blue, red, and green lights that indicated the return of the _Stan o’ War II._ Mabel clung onto his shoulders, digging into his skin with the spines on her gloves as he raced for the cavern’s only exit. He swam forward relentlessly, barely noticing the pain.

Mabel, however, kept her eyes focused on the egg as the pressure within it finally became too great, and it exploded. A burst of heat and energy radiated forth as the ceiling finally ruptured and the power of the core was released into the ocean, an eruption of gas and rock scattering across the seafloor.

At the center of the cavern, on the stone altar, was the figure that had been within the egg—a charred and contorted mass of flesh, bone, and brick. Mabel was barely able to register the fact that it had limbs before Mermando screamed in agony. The ocean around the teleporting ship was pushed back by the blast of cool air that had come from the surface.

The temperature readout on Mabel’s mask spiked as the prince plunged through the pulse of superheated water, his skin burning and scales flaking off as he raced for salvation. Mabel screamed in pain as well, though her feeling was muted by the protection of her wetsuit. Mermando, hoping desperately to escape the nightmare of the cavern and the core, felt it all.

Finally, Mermando burst forth into the air bubble that had been brought from the surface, and collapsed to the deck of the _Stan o’ War II._ Steam rose from his body as he tried to move, but he soon flopped down helplessly, unable to breathe.

Mabel rolled over onto her back, wincing as she looked around her. She stared up, looking out at the rushing, boiling water around her as Stan slammed the teleportation engine into overdrive. She closed her eyes, wincing in pain, surprise, and joy as the madness of the core’s detonation was replaced by the calm, cool air of the surface.

When she opened her eyes, the carpet of the Milky Way was laid out in all of its soft, multicolored glory above her. It was the first time in two days that she had seen the sky, and the carpet of stars welcomed her with an easy comfort. Panting and exhausted, she tore off her mask and inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of the sweet Bahamian night air.

Then, she turned her head to the side when she heard a sound banging on the deck of the damaged ship. Mermando, desperate for air, was slamming his tail against the metal out of instinct, but wincing every time his burned skin brushed against the boat.

Grimacing, Mabel dragged herself across the deck to the stern of the _Stan o’ War II_ and pushed Mermando into the water, where he limply landed with a splash. His skin, scalded red by the boiling water he dove through, shone in the moonlight. A contingent of soldiers with creams, bandages, and salves immediately clustered around him. 

Beyond the borders of the boat, Hogsty Reef was abuzz with activity. Tiburónes were helping both their fellow merfolk and the captured humans wake up, controlling their breathing and providing food as they regained their own sense of being. Stan descended from the wheelhouse to help Dipper and Pacifica bring the soaking wet Ford, Sam, and Hudson back on board. Mabel simply rested, grateful for a few moments of isolation and recovery before Dipper and Ford started to figure out what the hell had just happened.

In the distance, the column of superheated water rocketing up from the seafloor soon reached the surface. A series of boiling bubbles burst, releasing clouds of sulfurous, foul-smelling gas into the air. Soon, however, the heat and odor dissipated, swallowed forever by the sheer immensity of the cold and unyielding ocean.


	30. Rebuild

Every so often, a scream would ring out across the waters of Hogsty Reef as a prisoner woke up, and all of their memories came flooding back to them—of being near the water and seeing a green, disjointed figure with orange eyes, and then everything going dark. The nearly full moon shone down on the sandbars, casting a silver glow on the shapes of the merfolk beneath the water as they darted back and forth, administering food and medical care that had been hastily brought up from Pescadorado.

The _Stan o’ War II_ floated, crushed, battered, and bruised in the center of the reef. The leaks that had formed in the hull as a result of the core’s tentacle had been very hastily patched, though a solid two inches of water still sloshed around in the bottom of the ship. Thankfully, all of the electronics, including the recently installed teleportation engine, had been waterproofed.

Other than the moon and stars, the only source of light was that shining out through the windows of the cabin on the ship. The kitchen was bathed in warm yellow incandescence, while the laboratory was illuminated with a clinical white fluorescence. The light within the lab was harsh, but it was easy to see in as Pacifica guided the needle of the IV into Ford’s left arm.

Ford winced as the IV slid into his vein, this being Pacifica’s third attempt at installing it. Now, however, her shaking hands successfully found the correct entry point. A weak smile crossed the blonde’s face as she taped the needle in place and affixed the tubing to a bag of saline that had been suspended from the ceiling with a zip tie.

“There you go,” Pacifica grinned, trying to be a good nurse and project confidence as she stood up and stepped away from Ford. Installing IVs hadn’t been part of her private school first aid training, but she had purchased a handbook on practical medicine after her trip up to Seattle with the twins, just in case she needed to do something more intense than stitch together cuts. She was pleased to see that the investment had paid off.

“Thank you, Pacifica,” Ford sighed as he slumped back in his rolling chair, holding his arm steady. His silver hair was puffed out around him, having been quickly dried off with a towel. Instead of his usual coat and turtleneck, or even a wetsuit, Stan had carried him belowdecks and changed him into a white t-shirt and flannel pants. He wore wool socks with an image of a moose woven into them. Everything below his neck was wrapped in a thick blanket, preserving what little of his body heat had remained when he was rescued.

The algae and sea lice had been combed out of his hair and stubble, but he still bore the marks of his captivity roughly. His cheekbones were prominent, and his lips were chapped with dehydration. His rapid breathing rattled uncertainly, as though he was trying to make up for all of the air he had lost when he was in the grasp of the core’s paralyzing tentacles. Ford sat in the corner of the laboratory, watching the screen on the wall as it replayed the events of the last hour.

The global map of weirdness density had been zoomed into the Bahamas—the concentrations in East Asia and the swirling vortex within the borders of the Gravity Well had remained unchanged. The anomalies within the Bahamas, however, were now showing up far differently.

At the moment the core had imploded, the instruments detected a surge of activity that far surpassed the energy unleased when Ford’s portal had been activated beneath the Mystery Shack. In fact, in terms of total power, it rivaled Weirdmageddon.

The only difference was that there had been nothing to guide the energy with a purpose—there had been no portal, and no Bill. The power had simply spiked, and then dissipated into the ocean. The only traces of anomalies on the map were now El Pescadorado itself, and the pinprick points generated by the scattered vampires as they recovered consciousness.

Dipper and Mabel were leaned against the windows directly opposite the screen. Dipper stared forward at the instrument readout intensely, trying to piece together his understanding of anomalies with the nightmare he had seen. Mabel simply gazed at her feet. Each of them, along with Pacifica, had changed out of their wetsuits and were now wearing loose and baggy clothes, allowing their skin to readjust to the air.

Mabel looked out of the window to her left onto the stern of the _Stan o’ War II._ Next to her was the warped sunspear she had used to sever the final tentacle, which leaned up against a bank of computers. She could see Hudson sitting on the deck with his feet dangling in the water, his entire head bandaged by the assisting merfolk. His vampiric healing powers would allow him to regenerate quickly, but being caught by the flash of the solar lance had still dealt him a serious and painful wound. He looked up at the sky, savoring the sight of the moon and stars through his own eyes for the first time in weeks.

Mermando, however, floated on his back in the water. He was conscious, but wincing as attendants smeared him with an odorous, oily salve intended to prevent his burns from leaving any lasting damage. Like vampires, the merfolk had an advanced healing rate, though not nearly as quickly. All of the boys she cared about had suffered grievously—for both the causes they cared about, and for her.

Mermando and Hudson had awoken, but Sam had not. Mabel had watched from her position on the deck as Stan and Dipper carried him belowdecks and placed him back into his hammock—he wasn’t physically injured. Mabel, however, had seen the orange glow in his eyes when he touched the cable to save her. It had only shined for a moment, but she knew from Hudson and Ford how psychologically damaging even minimal contact could be.

“So what was that thing?” Dipper asked quietly, speaking out into the silent room. Mabel jumped, jerked out of her reverie by the question. For a long moment, no one replied—they simply didn’t have the answer.

In the kitchen, a tea kettle began to squeal.

“It was a monster,” Ford said simply, his voice trembling and weak from beneath his blanket. “I’ve seen many monsters in my time. I’ve felt many monsters—both their actual teeth, and those that they sink into your mind. But this was different.”

“Different?” Dipper asked, turning towards his mentor. “How was it different? You were the only one of us who got a glimpse at the mind of that thing. What was it like?”

“Slow down, Dipper,” Ford winced at the questions. He reached up and rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I’m an old man. Let’s take things slowly.”

“I’m sorry,” Dipper murmured, leaning back up against the window. He was desperate to know what the core had been, but he didn’t want to aggravate Ford’s injuries. The question had been asked, and Ford would respond in his own time.

“It was like fire,” Ford finally replied, taking off his glasses and setting them on the empty table in the center of the lab with a clink. “Cold fire. Because of the metal plate in my head, the demon inside the egg couldn’t get to me like it could all of the others, and I wasn’t about to let it in. Because it couldn’t see me, I also couldn’t see it. But I could sense something moving around beyond the barrier between us, something calculating, vengeful, and cruel.”

“Could we ask one of the other people who we rescued?” Pacifica asked as she leaned up against the wall next to Ford, glancing into the kitchen to see Stan delicately pouring hot water into a series of mugs. “They wouldn’t have had the metal plates. Maybe they could tell us something.”

“I doubt it,” Dipper interjected, answering for Ford even as the older man shook his head. “You saw what it was like with Hudson. His memory of what it was like got wiped, and he was only able to remember where he had been with time. Plus, I doubt any of the victims would have enough context to even understand what they’ve just been through.” Dipper shrugged at Pacifica apologetically, prompting her to nod solemnly in understanding.

“There are some things we know, though,” Ford continued, lifting a shaky finger and pointing it towards the map. “We know that whatever that thing was, it was definitely the cause of the concentration of anomalies in this area.”

“That definitely tracks,” Dipper confirmed, looking back up at the map. With the extinguishing of the core, the red spike of weirdness activity had immediately faded. “But what does that mean for Asia? And Gravity Falls? Was this core somehow large enough to cause all of the disturbances we’re seeing, and it’s just taking them longer to dissipate due to distance? Or, could there be cores just like this one in those places as well, trying to harvest their own energy?”

“It’s entirely possible,” Ford grimaced. “I’ll set my web scrapers to look for any large amounts of missing people in a particular location. If this were happening beneath Gravity Falls, however, my instruments certainly would have detected it by now.”

“So it could just have been here, then,” Mabel nodded. “Why would the core have picked here to… manifest, though? I don’t think it was natural, so it picked the outside of Pescadorado for a reason.”

“It was a mind demon, that much I know for sure,” Ford swallowed. “I spent enough time with Bill rattling around in my brain to know what one of those feels like. It wouldn’t be difficult for one to reach through the dimensional fabric to possess someone, even without a portal. Then, they would have simply used that initial vessel to grow in power and influence—multilevel marketing gone murderous. Why exactly it was trying to harvest energy from all of those innocent people, though… that’s beyond me.”

“I don’t know either,” Dipper sighed, earning a sympathetic nod of agreement from Pacifica. All of the monsters she and Dipper had faced before, even something as amorphic as the shapeshifter, were ultimately physical. A mind demon was different. “Bill just turned the townspeople to stone. Obviously all of the power the demon was harvesting was going into the egg, and it was being used to control the vampires and feed whatever was inside the core.”

“Did anyone here get a look inside the core when it exploded?” Ford asked as Stan entered the room with a tray of mugs. Each was filled to the brim with steaming water, with the herbal scent of chamomile drifting up into the air.

“I did,” Mabel volunteered, tentatively raising a hand as every eye shifted over to her. Stan started to pass out the mugs as she talked—Ford took his graciously, savoring it for the warmth as much as for the scent and flavor. “Not a good look, but… when Mermando and I had sliced off the final tentacle, and were heading for the ship to get out of the cavern, it looked almost… like a person.”

“Can you provide any more details?” Ford asked. He glanced to the side and considered getting out a sketchpad to make a drawing of the monster—however, he was still too weak to do much moving. He took a sip of the tea, and felt a blooming warmth fill his chest as he smiled for the first time since he had been rescued.

“Maybe calling it a person is too much,” Mabel admitted. “It had arms and legs, but there were too many of them, and they seemed like they were in the wrong places.” She closed her eyes and winced, shuddering as she tried to recall more details about the creature inside the egg. “There were bones, but they looked like they were on the outside instead of the inside. And there were also these weird rocks with sharp corners scattered all around it… I didn’t see any eyes. Maybe there was a tail?”

When she opened her eyes, Stan stood in front of her with a gentle smile on his face. There were two mugs of chamomile tea left on the tray. She took one thankfully, using the fresh scent of the leaves to take her mind off of the nightmare she had just relived. She was surprised, however, when Stan stayed in front of her, offering the second mug.

“What is this for?” Mabel asked, whispering as she took it.

“You ought to take it down to Sam,” Stan responded. “Someone ought to be there when he wakes up, and I think he would like it if that person was you.” He smiled at her and gave a knowing wink. A blush of embarrassment and gratitude filled Mabel’s cheeks as she lowered the mugs. Stan’s eyes flashed towards her sunspear.

“That’s enough for now, Mabel,” Ford chuckled lightly from across the room. “You can go belowdecks if you like. Dipper, Pacifica, Stan, and I have plenty of information to talk about.”

“Thanks, Grunkle Ford,” Mabel replied, kicking herself off of the window she was leaning against and standing up, the tea in her two mugs sloshing around. She turned and headed for the door.

“Our first order of business should probably be to get the captured people to safety,” Dipper said from behind her. “Then, we can investigate the other anomaly concentrations to ensure that nothing like this is happening there either. But right now, these prisoners matter more—if we talk to Mermando, I’m sure we can get the merfolk to swim with the victims to the nearest populated island. They’ll just need a cover story—a sunken boat, or a crashed airplane.”

Mabel placed her foot on the door, ready to kick it open and walk out onto the rear deck when a thought occurred to her. She froze, and considered keeping it to herself—but she knew that doing so would cause much more long term harm than good.

“Umm… one more thing,” she began, turning around and facing back into the laboratory. Dipper, Ford, and Pacifica all spun their heads to look at her—Stan, who had just walked into the kitchen, turned around. “Before Grunkle Stan came down with the ship to save us, Sam kind of… touched one of the tentacles.”

A silence fell over the room as everyone looked at Ford, who calmly sipped his tea. Mabel’s heart was pounding, unsure of what he might say.

“I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” Ford finally replied with a smile. “I haven’t the foggiest idea of how to deal with that. My instinct is that he would have been freed whenever the core imploded.”

“I think so too!” Mabel chimed in. “He didn’t even really touch it for that long, and the glow in his eyes was there for just a split second before it went away. I was just wondering if Dipper wanted to perform one of those diamond exorcisms on him just to be safe.” She pointed towards her sunspear, which was leaned up in the corner of the room.

“You figured out how to perform dream demon exorcisms?” Ford commented with a raise of his eyebrows. He lifted his mug of tea towards Dipper in congratulations. “Color me impressed. That would have been useful three years ago.”

“Well, we didn’t have diamonds three years ago,” Dipper replied, rubbing the back of his head as he blushed in pride at the compliment. “But, I don’t think we need to do that,” he continued, turning seriously towards his sister. “All of the people the core possessed seem to be fine now. Plus, I’m not sure what performing an exorcism on someone who doesn’t have a demon in them would even do. Would it pull their own consciousness into the gemstone and tear them out of their body? That’s a risk I don’t want to take.”

“Then I’m good to go talk to Sam?” Mabel asked, getting permission and clearance from everyone in the room before she went belowdecks.

“Yes, Mabel,” Pacifica replied with a smile, speaking for the room. “We’ll deal with things up here. Go take that idiot his tea. And tell him that if he is possessed, he really ought to let us know.”

“You got it,” Mabel promised, walking back towards the door. Dipper, Pacifica, Stan, and Ford immediately started to speak again as they tried to figure out the mystery of the core and what they needed to do next. Mabel, however, simply opened the door with her butt and walked out onto the deck into the cool Bahamian night air.

She then froze again as she saw Hudson and Mermando resting at the back of the boat—the prince was barely visible over the gunwale, but Hudson’s bandaged face turned around to greet her as she emerged from the laboratory. She felt her blood run cold as he looked at her—only one grey eye shone out through the white fabric, and even his beard was obscured, leaving only the thinnest line for his mouth. He could likely take off the wrappings by morning, but for now, he looked both terrifying and sad.

“Mabel!” Hudson declared, gesturing her over. Hearing the brunette’s name, Mermando briefly rose up out of the water, causing his medical attendants to protest loudly. Tentatively, Mabel began to walk to the back of the boat, holding onto the two steaming cups of tea. “I was worried that they were going to keep you in there all night.”

Slowly, Mabel advanced towards the two boys, taking deep breaths as she did so. Everything that she and Pacifica had discussed on the roof of Mermando’s palace was still true, and she knew that the time had come for a difficult conversation. She didn’t envy having it, but knew that it needed to be had. The last thing she wanted was a repeat of the Gideon incident with a merman prince and a jealous vampire.

“Are you okay?” Mermando asked, his hair bound into a tight ponytail behind him to keep from interfering with the work of the merfolk around him. His glistening red skin was now covered in a pale white sheen of lotions and creams, sinking into his pores and treating the scald wounds. Patches of scales on his tail were flaking off in blackened clumps, drifting down to the calm sands beneath the water. “I told my medical staff to give you some of this cream to treat your burns, but they said you escaped relatively unharmed. I’m grateful for that.”

“So am I,” Mabel smiled as she leaned over the railing—Hudson sat beside her, and Mermando floated in the water before her. “My wetsuit did a good job of adjusting to the temperature. There’s a few places around my knees and elbows where I got hurt, but they’re no worse than sunburns. You went though so much more to get us to safety.”

“I’d do it all again if I had to,” Mermando declared, lifting his tail into the air and splashing it back down emphatically, splashing Mabel and Hudson at the cost of consternation from his staff. “For the safety of my people, and for the rescue of your uncle. The core needed to be defeated at all costs.”

“You got that right,” Hudson echoed, chuckling as he wiped the droplets of seawater off of his skin. “I’m just sad that it got so chaotic at the end. We could have saved so many more people. So many more vampires, too.”

“I think we did a pretty good job,” Mabel encouraged, looking out at the sandbars surrounding the _Stan o’ War II._ Almost every exposed inch of land was covered by someone that had been brought up from below on the deck of the ship. Even the bottom of the reef, covered in a fine white sand, was populated by merfolk who were recovering from their ordeal. “Given that we didn’t know what we were up against. If we had, we would have brought much bigger guns. Or spears. Or… whatever.”

“More soldiers, certainly,” Mermando replied solemnly, wincing as bandages saturated with a numbing bacterial salve were wrapped around the cuts on his upper arms. “We lost some good tiburónes during that battle. As soon as things get back to normal around Pescadorado, I’m going to have a statue commissioned of them to put in the armory.”

“I’m sure they’d appreciate that,” Hudson nodded, his gravelly voice seeming to shake the structure of the boat itself. “Just make sure that you don’t demonize the vampires. We were just tools of that monster. We meant to come in peace—it’s a shame we didn’t arrive that way.”

“It is,” Mermando nodded. “Perhaps now that the core is gone, we can get off on a better footing. It will take time, though. After so many disappearances, I’m sure you understand how challenging it will be to get the citizens of my city to trust your kind again.”

“My kind,” Hudson shrugged, slumping over on the lower bar of the railing. “My kind. We were just unlucky. I’m sure if squid could kidnap people, that demon would have taken them just as happily.”

"What happened wasn’t your fault, Hudson,” Mabel reassured him, looking down at the single grey eye gazing up at her from a field of white bandages. “And you shouldn’t have to be responsible for what the merfolk think, but people stereotype to protect themselves. It’s not moral, and it’s not right, but they do. I just want you to be safe—you need a place away from the sun to live your life.”

“I would like that,” Hudson smiled wistfully beneath the bandages, before patting the deck next to him. “Why don’t you sit down? Your tea is going to get cold.”

“O-oh…” Mabel stammered, blushing as she took a step back. “I really shouldn’t. It’s not my tea, and… there’s actually something that we need to talk about.”

“What is it, Mabel?” Mermando replied, gently waving away his medical attendants. They moved away from him, grumbling in disappointment, but followed the commands of their prince. Hudson remained silent, though he tore his gaze away from Mabel and slumped back over the railing—some part of him already knew what she was about to say. “Feel free to tell me anything.”

“It’s not just you, Mermando,” Mabel sighed, hanging her head and feeling her slightly damp hair roll off of her shoulders and tumble down over the railing. “This is for Hudson too. It’s just… I don’t think that we’re going to work out—romantically, that is.”

“Yeah, that figures,” Hudson grumbled to himself, dejected and angry. “The pretty boy was just too much to compete with.”

“That’s not it at all!” Mabel snapped defensively, surprised at Hudson’s aggression. Then again, he had a right to be angry—it was difficult to keep your cool when you were missing half of your face.

“Then why, Mabel?” Mermando asked, his voice more plaintive than mad. “I thought that you still loved me… because I know what we had when we met all those many years ago was real. And I’m not lost anymore. I know who I am now, and I have all of the wealth and power you would need to be happy and comfortable. It’s not that I can’t take care of you, so… is, is it me?” The prince was bargaining with her, trying to reconcile his understanding of his own self-worth with Mabel’s rejection of him.

“No, no, Mermando!” Mabel replied emphatically. “And that goes for you too, Hudson. I love both of you, more than you could know. But I realized that the love I feel isn’t romantic—I thought it was at first, and I’m sorry if I send misleading signals because of that, but it became clear over the past few days that it’s different. I care for you both deeply… as friends.”

“Friends,” Mermando and Hudson both sighed in unison, defeated. For a few moments, both of the men sat in silence, simply processing what they had just heard. It was even more awkward that Mabel was turning both of them down at the same time—but, given the madness they had just survived, they understood the efficiency.

“I know it’s hard to hear…” Mabel acknowledged, averting her eyes from the two men before her. She inhaled deeply, feeling the calming aroma of the tea cut across the salt in the air. “But I wanted to be the one to tell you this myself, instead of letting us just grow apart and keeping you in the dark. I learned years ago that it’s best to be honest.”

“I can’t pretend like it doesn’t sting,” Mermando laughed feebly, trying to restore a sense of humor into the situation. He briefly bobbed down into the water and came back up, untying his hair as he did so—whether he submerged to wet his hair or to hide a tear, Mabel wasn’t sure. “I had thought for sure that being the Princess of El Pescadorado, and really the entire Caribbean, was an enticing proposition.”

“It was!” Mabel cried, trying to reassure her friend. Now that the hard part was over, her natural instinct to make people feel good were coming back into play. “But it just wasn’t for me. You know how the people down there feel about vampires right now… imagine how they’d feel about a human ruler telling them what to do.”

“I suppose you’re right about that, Mabel,” the prince replied. “It would be a little awkward having to put on a mask and wetsuit every time you wanted to go outside.”

“And I suppose that goes for me as well,” Hudson grumbled. “Only going out at night was too much of a sacrifice. At least Sammy can go sunbathing.”

“Hudson, you know that’s not true,” Mabel chastised him. “Sam and I aren’t even a thing right now. My decision here is entirely independent of him.”

“Then who’s the tea for?” Hudson snapped back, a green tide of jealousy rising in his voice. Mabel was unapologetic.

“Sam,” she confirmed, raising the steaming mug into the air. “Because I care for him at least as a friend, just like I care about you. Here, you can have this one.” With that, she crouched down and offered one of the mugs to the vampire. He looked at it uncertainly, as though he didn’t understand what her intentions were.

Slowly, he extended his hands and took the mug from her, savoring the warmth against his naturally cold skin. He brought it up to his lips and took a sip, exhaling loudly as he did so. His emotions about Mabel had become so bound up in his romantic feelings for her that he was having difficulty considering her simply as a friend. After all, she was the one who had given him her phone number back in Yachats, Oregon.

“I’m sorry,” Hudson apologized, holding the mug tight against his chest, his resonant voice cracking an entire octave higher. “I just wasn’t expecting that tonight. Not after everything that happened.”

“It been a big night for multiple reasons, my friend,” Mermando replied, swimming up to the vampire and lightly patting him on the leg. “At least now we know where everything stands, and can move forward in peace.”

“Thank you, Mermando,” Mabel smiled, making eye contact with the mournful eyes of the prince. “It means a lot to me to hear you say that.” She had been concerned about anger bubbling back up between the prince, the vampire, and Sam—but, despite Hudson’s outburst, now that they knew what Mabel’s decision was, they both seemed to accept it. 

“I’ll do more than say it, Mabel—I’ll prove it,” he continued with a grin. “Tomorrow night, I’m going to throw a feast in celebration of our victory here. I would like you, along with Sam, Pacifica, and the rest of your family, to join us.”

“Really?” Mabel asked in surprise. “Even after everything that I just said?”

“Even now,” Mermando nodded. “It is like you said—my feelings for you now are just as strong as they would have been if you had chosen to be my queen. I want to treat you to this celebration, as friends.”

“Well, I’ll have to talk to them about it,” Mabel blushed, pointing back towards the cabin. “I’m not sure if Grunkle Ford could handle going down there with everything he’s been through, and we have a party we’re supposed to be getting back to in Charleston…”

“Take your time,” Mermando reassured. “I will be glad to hear your answer either way. But for now, I recommend you take that tea to Samuel. It looks like it’s getting cold.” The prince winked at her slyly, though the friendly gesture couldn’t quite conceal the pain hiding beneath the surface.

Mabel nodded at him in response. When she looked down at Hudson, she saw his shining grey eye gazing back at her wistfully. After a moment, he blinked and returned to his tea, sniffling.

Mabel couldn’t help but pout as she turned her back on the two boys and began walking back towards the hatch leading into the hull. Slowly, her breathing began to calm down and her heart began to slow. The entire conversation had been quick and to the point. However, she didn’t yet feel as though a burden had been lifted off of her shoulders. Just as she had predicted to both Dipper and Pacifica, even though the conversation had been had, the feelings remained.

“Come on, Hudson,” Mermando whispered, believing that Mabel was out of earshot. The brunette slowed her pace and perked her ears up slightly, listening at the conversation they were having behind her. “I’m in the same boat as you here. I know it stings, but how about this—I promise that I’ll set you up with the daughter of one of my advisors. She’s got a ruby red tail, green eyes, and curly, jet-black hair.”

“Thanks for that,” Hudson replied with a laugh, unable to keep a chuckle from escaping him. “But I think I need a little time to process things before I get into a relationship. Not just with Mabel, but with what being a vampire really means. There are things I wanted to do with my life that I can’t now… I’ll need to readjust.”

“I’ll do what I can to help you,” Mermando smiled. “And, if that happens to include setting you up with Meredith, then so be it.”

Now, Hudson’s powerful reverberating laugh was full-bodied and bold. Mabel smiled as she stepped onto the descending staircase. She was grateful to hear that Hudson and Mermando were quickly finding friends in each other.

“I don’t even know how that would work,” Hudson continued, rolling his eye over a bandaged smile. “I mean, a fish and a vampire? Just biologically, it doesn’t make much sense.”

“It does seem a bit odd, doesn’t it?” Mermando remarked, as though it was a thought he had never considered before.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how exactly does it work in Pescadorado?” Hudson asked practically. “With… getting physical, so to speak.”

Mabel was glad she was too far down in the hold to hear Mermando’s response. The cup of tea she was holding had almost cooled down to drinking temperature as she walked towards Sam’s bunk.

The blonde boy was laid back in his hammock, with a folded towel propped under his head as an improvised pillow. Like Ford and the others, he had been changed out of his wetsuit and into a loose pair of his pajamas—in this case, gym shorts and a light gray t-shirt. A patterned blanket had been thrown over him, keeping him warm as he slept.

Moving as quietly as possible, Mabel dragged one of the plastic totes out from underneath his hammock to create an improvised chair. She sat down on it and simply looked at him, thinking about her feelings for him, and what she could possibly say when he woke up. As much as she still had feelings for the boys she had left behind on the deck, the boy in the hammock before her now represented the possibility of a future.

The teleportation engine had been mounted on brackets in the center of the room. The two glass orbs flickered dimly, sending alternating waves of blue and orange light reflecting off the interior hull of the ship. The shadow of Sam’s profile was cast against the metal of the hold, sharp and distinct.

When Mabel had first met Sam, she hadn’t known what to think. Dipper had just vanquished the shapeshifter using the original teleportation engine, an improved replica of which sat behind her. He had charged out into the blizzard to rescue Pacifica, and crashed his beloved truck Francine in the process. Dipper had sacrificed his shoes for the girl he loved, ready to freeze in the forest if he hadn’t been rescued by the manotaurs.

It was the morning after that, Christmas morning, that the blonde boy had appeared in the door of the Mystery Shack. Mabel had sat paralyzed on the other side of the upside-down Christmas tree, watching as he walked into the living room and immediately knelt down to scratch the ears of the injured Waddles.

She had known from that first moment that she was attracted to him—he was tall, blonde, muscular, and impeccably dressed. It would have been so easy for her feelings for him to stall out there, but they hadn’t—he had kept petting Waddles, and her love for him had begun to grow.

Over the next six months, she had gotten his phone number from Pacifica and they had exchanged a few sparse, tentative texts. She couldn’t get thoughts of him out of her head, and savored the idea of seeing him again at the Southeast’s Fourth of July Party. When she had learned that it wouldn’t just be the party, but instead an entire week at the Southeast Estate, she had been ecstatic.

But, on the ride to the airport, her stomach had betrayed her. It was then that she realized her feelings for Sam weren’t just a passing crush like all of her previous loves. Seeing him again had felt like a thrilling and terrifying proposition, making her want to scream in exultation and agony at the same time.

Now, after speaking and singing on the trip to the Bahamas aboard the _Stan o’ War II_ , and everything that they had fought through in the city beneath the waves, things were different. They had flirted, each of them speaking with Dipper and Pacifica for advice and certainty as they realized what was happening—they recognized that they were falling into each other’s gravity, and neither was sure if they wanted to flee.

Sitting next to the boy in the hammock felt like a culmination of everything Mabel had experienced over the past six months, from the crying to the awkward conversations, the tentative flirting to the uncertain singing lessons. Before the battle with the core, they had each known that something had to give, and the status quo had to change. Now was the time.

But Sam was unconscious, asleep as he recovered from being attacked by the core. Mabel had only had her mind invaded once—when Bill had snapped his fingers in the form of Blendin and rendered her unconscious as Weirdmageddon was beginning. Then, there had only been a split-second of penetration before the crafty, experienced demon had scrambled her thoughts and retreated.

The monster in the egg below had been crude and cruel. No beast that used bodies as blunt instruments was capable of the same surgical psychological manipulation as Bill. Whatever it had done to Sam had been quick, brutish, and dirty.

It was a blow that he had taken for her.

The steam on the tea was beginning to fade and dissipate as Mabel reached forward and placed the back of her hand on the boy’s forehead, searching for a fever. As her gentle fingers brushed aside his blonde locks, however, his lips parted and he gave a feeble moan. Mabel’s hand shot back in worry, though a brace-free smile spread across her face as Sam began to move. 

Slowly, Sam blearily blinked awake, his pupils shrinking as they adjusted to the shimmering light coming off of the teleportation engine in the center of the room. After a moment of searching, they focused on Mabel and her caring, slightly damp silhouette.

“Hey,” she whispered gently as Sam lifted a hand to his eyes and rubbed them, waking up in earnest. He tried to pull himself up into a sitting position in his hammock, but found himself unable to—he didn’t yet have full control over his weakened muscles. “Take it easy. You’ve been through a lot.”

“What happened?” Sam asked in a mild panic as he released the bunched up fabric of the hammock and slumped back down into it. “We were underwater, and now we’re here. Mabel, we were surrounded by vampires—we were going to die.” His voice rose in pitch as he panicked, starting to hyperventilate as he thought back to seeing Mermando and Hudson tossed into the cavern wall by the core, and the landslide blocking off their only escape route.

“Calm down,” Mabel whispered gently, placing the cup of chamomile tea into his hands. Though the mug was lukewarm at best, his fingers still wrapped around it instinctively as they savored the warmth. “We’re safe now, and I’ll explain everything. What do you remember?”

“I remember seeing something reflected in your mask…” Sam murmured. “And I reached out to grab it before it hit you, and then… nothing.” As he spoke, Mabel deftly wrapped her arms beneath his right shoulder and helped to drag him into a sitting position, allowing him to sip the tea more comfortably. It wasn’t as dramatic as the medical treatments Pacifica was constantly giving to Dipper, but it made her feel good to know that she was making the life of the boy she cared for easier.

“Okay, so you missed a lot,” Mabel responded with a smile as she sat back down on her tote. “Everything that you remember is true, though. We were surrounded, and you grabbed one of the core’s tentacles out of midair to save me.”

“Then… I got possessed?” Sam asked, his head snapping to the left as he tried to look at his reflection in the metal of the ship’s hull. When he could detect no orange glow coming from his eyes, he relaxed only slightly.

“No, you didn’t!” Mabel replied emphatically. “It touched you for maybe two seconds before I cut it off. Do you not remember anything at all?”

“I… maybe… no,” he finally admitted, slumping over in his hammock. “As soon as I touched that thing, I blacked out until I woke up here. If I did feel something, I don’t remember it.”

“That’s okay,” Mabel reassured him. She reached out to take his hand, but hesitated, and instead awkwardly patted him on the knee. “Like I said, I cut the cable. After that, Stan showed up.”

“Stan showed up?” Sam asked, both marveling at the drama of the story he had been unconscious for, and confused as to how it could happen. “But he was on the surface when Dipper and I came up last afternoon. There’s no way he could have gotten there that quickly.”

“There is,” Mabel smiled, pointing towards the teleportation engine in the center of the room. Only now did Sam seem to fully register that it was there, and comprehend what it meant that the engine had been mounted in the hull of the _Stan o’ War II._

“So Stan fixed the teleportation engine…” Sam whispered in amazement. “And he came and saved us.” He shook his head in disbelief, before his brow furrowed in worry. “Did we wind up destroying the core, or is it still alive? Do we need to go back down?”

“Stan blasted off one of the two tentacles with Ford’s laser pistol,” Mabel beamed proudly. “Then Mermando and I cut off the last one. It was… madness. The entire cavern exploded. We would have been boiled alive if it wasn’t for Stan.”

“I’m surprised that he was able to learn how to code so quickly,” Sam laughed lightly, though his mind was preoccupied with other worries.

He lowered his cup of chamomile tea into his lap with a sigh, looking at Mabel as he did so. He felt himself torn between hope and despair, desperation and certainty, glory and humiliation.

“So, you and Mermando cut off the last tentacle, huh?” he asked, eyes scanning Mabel’s face for the slightest hint of a response. Mentioning the prince’s name had brought up his old fears—if the merman had saved Mabel, it was possible that things had changed against his favor while he was unconscious in ways he wasn’t yet aware of.

“We did,” Mabel smiled warmly, recognizing Sam’s insecurities and meeting him halfway. “He was really heroic, but he’s a prince. He has to be like that. As much as I’d like to think it, I’m not a princess. I know that—princesses don’t win trophies for making felt pants and putting on pyrotechnic puppet shows.”

“Speaking of pyrotechnics,” Sam choked out, reading between the lines of what Mabel was saying and seizing the opportunity to speak before his courage failed him. “At the Fourth of July Party, there’s always a big fireworks display at the end. I was wondering if you maybe wanted to watch it with me. You know, away from Pacifica and Dipper?”

Mabel’s heart pounded as both adrenaline and relief filled her body. Sam had finally asked her a simple, insurmountable question, and she was elated to say yes. The proposition of what lay ahead was both beautiful and frightening.

“I… suppose that Dipper and Pacifica would like the privacy,” Mabel answered, reaching out and taking Sam’s hand. He flinched at the contact, but soon interlaced his fingers with hers. They had been gazing at each other for so long that the mere act of asking Mabel on a date was enough permission for holding hands. “So, yes, Sam. I would love to watch the fireworks with you.”

Sam slumped back into the hammock, still holding onto Mabel’s hand as all of the tension that had been built up in his muscles over days of stress and worry drained away. He started to laugh; his eyes closed as the hammock shook. He held his tea in his left hand as he brought his right, holding Mabel’s, up to his forehead.

“What is it?” Mabel asked, looking from side to side in confusion. She enjoyed the rich, airy, and booming sound of Sam’s laugh as it reverberated around inside the hull of the _Stan o’ War II_ , but nothing seemed particularly funny.

“Oh, nothing,” Sam answered, shaking his head as he lowered Mabel’s hand away from his face. “I just wish I had asked that a lot sooner. It would have saved some emotions.”

“All emotions are worth feeling,” Mabel responded wisely, before her curiosity got the better of her. “Why didn’t you ask earlier, though? I would have said yes.”

“Nerves,” Sam chuckled. “You’re so different from all the girls I’ve talked to before, I had no idea where to start. Even talking to Dipper and Pacifica didn’t really help.”

“What finally did?” Mabel asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Almost getting possessed by a demon and torn apart by vampires,” Sam answered matter-of-factly. “But it wasn’t so much the idea of me dying as the idea of losing you, Miss Starr.”

“Shut up,” Mabel scolded warmly, pushing Sam’s hammock and causing droplets of lukewarm chamomile tea to slosh out of his mug as a blush rose into her cheeks. “You can’t just say things like that when we haven’t even been on a date yet.”

“I meant it,” Sam doubled down, laughing joyously as he tried to stabilize his swinging bed. “That’s why I said it. I thought about what it would be like to go on without you and your pig, and the world just felt… gray.”

“Yeah, well…” Mabel responded, blushing even more fiercely as she lifted her other hand and began to trace the fine hairs on Sam’s arms. “Waddles isn’t here right now.”

“I don’t want Waddles,” Sam replied, gazing into Mabel’s chocolate brown eyes, swirled through with ripples of dark and light like coffee and the trunks of forest trees. “I want you.” He burst out into laughter again as Mabel pushed his hammock, even more intensely this time. The brunette’s blush had gone from a pale pink to a vibrant red.

“Yeah, well, Waddles and I are a package,” Mabel fired back, turning away from him and raising her nose in mock snootiness. “So get ready to deal with both of us.”

“I look forward to it,” Sam answered with a smile, gently extricating his hand from Mabel’s grasp. Bending down, he grabbed ahold of the tote she was sitting on and pulled it closer to his hammock. Mabel turned around in surprise as she felt herself move, but smiled as soon as she saw what Sam was doing.

She lolled her head back gently, resting it on the chest of the blonde boy in the hammock, still weak from their underwater adventures. She closed her eyes and noticed her breathing automatically align with his, feeling the prominent rise and fall of his solid torso. She cracked open an eye when she felt his fingers gently tap her shoulder.

Peering out, she could see Sam offering her his hand—not to set off on some marvelous adventure, but simply to hold as they both rested and recovered from the trials they had survived together. Mabel smiled contentedly as she reached up and took it, feeling the warmth of his skin against the soft coolness of hers. 


	31. Feast

A resonant, metallic plucking sound echoed around the inside of Mermando’s palace as the musicians tuned their instruments. Scaffolding had been hung from the roof of the throne room, allowing the band to sit together and fill the entire hall with their sound at the same time.

The instruments the quartet held vaguely resembled a piano, a guitar, a saxophone, and a drum set, but they had been adapted to underwater usage. The saxophone was much larger than normal and was mounted to a stand, since it was made of heavier material to withstand the force of the reverberating water within it. The guitar, however, was constructed of extremely valuable wood, and the strings were fine wires that had been seaforged in scalding hot water, just like Dipper’s knife.

The piano and drums were more similar to the equivalent instruments above land—the piano, like the guitar, had seaforged strings. The bridges, strings, and soundboard were not covered up, allowing the resonant impacts of the hammers striking the strings to radiate outwards. The drums were heavier than usual, and the drumhead stretched taut across the barrels came from small whales instead of goats or synthetic materials. The percussive sounds coming from the set as the player struck the skins with metal sticks were booming and thunderous.

Despite the similarity to common instruments, the music the merfolk produced with them was otherworldly and ethereal. It ignored all harmonic structures that had long ago been fundamentally incorporated into the music above, instead taking advantage of the echoing throne room and the sonic fidelity of the water to bounce sounds off of each other, each instrument playing with its own echo in a swelling, never-ceasing duet.

Dipper, Pacifica, Mabel, Sam, and Ford all looked up at the band in astonishment as they began to play in earnest, impressed with the nuance and power in the sound. Mabel started to hum lightly to herself and tapped her foot as they all looked down and took in the sight of the table laid out before them.

Mermando had hired the chefs of the restaurant he had taken Mabel to to cater the celebratory feast. They had been unable to enjoy their meal at the time due to Hudson’s attack, but now the maître d’ was flexing his managerial and culinary muscles as he swam around the room, directing his staff as they brought dish after dish of food down to the feasting table.

The table itself was shaped like a U, and ran the length of Mermando’s throne room. The open end pointed out towards the swirling roundabout at the center of Pescadorado, while the closed end was directly in front of the prince’s mangrove throne. It was made of a smooth, reflective fiberglass, carefully constructed from the sunken remains of modern boats. Many things in the underwater city were crafted from metal, but the carpenters had opted for the lighter material to make the table easier to move when not in use.

Dozens of chairs were placed around the table, and each one had a plate in front of it piled high with more food than anyone could possibly eat. There were dishes that the humans had seen before, including tuna rolls, crab puffs, and marlin filets, but there were also whole roasted barracuda, carafes of tiny shrimp, whale steaks, and exotic fruits like oranges that had been cracked open and doled out in miniscule portions—the fruit was the most precious thing of all.

At least thirty other merfolk were gathered around the table, including senior advisors and military officers, as well as their families. Outside of the palace, floating at smaller tables around the sunken Spanish galleon, were the tiburónes, who were enjoying the exact same dishes as the officials inside the palace—there simply wasn’t enough room for them all in the building. One of the outside tables had been left empty, representing the three noble soldiers who lost their lives in the battle against the core.

The merfolk, both military and civilian alike, were digging into the dishes before them with gusto, passing around plates and platters as they finished with one course and moved on to another. Mermando, at the head of the table, was eating more politely, taking smaller bites and chewing thoughtfully, savoring the flavors he had intended to share with Mabel, but was now unable to.

The humans gathered around the table, however, were not eating. The reason was simple—ensconced within their wetsuits and masks, they couldn’t eat at all. Instead, they sat at their privileged position at the feasting table sharing in conversation and laughter, while leaving the plates and silverware in front of them untouched.

When Mabel had returned to the cabin the night before after delivering Sam his tea, the others had happily received Mermando’s suggestion of a celebratory feast. Now that the teleportation engine had been repaired and was in a usable state, there was no time pressure to get back to Charleston in time for the Fourth of July Party the next night.

As the day dawned on July 3rd, Stan, Dipper, Mabel, and Pacifica had dedicated their time to repairing the damaged _Stan o’ War II_ as best they could while coordinating the rescue effort of the prisoners taken by the core. Over the course of the day, Mermando had sent out parties of soldiers swimming with humans on their backs, taking them to the nearest island with an airport. Without a memory gun to wipe their minds, there was nothing to keep the captives from tattling to the authorities about the existence of the merfolk. However, the city of Pescadorado was nothing if not well hidden, and even a wave of people claiming to have seen the same thing would likely be dismissed as a mass delusion.

Hudson, meanwhile, unable to survive in the sunlight, had descended back to the city under heavy armed guard—not to prevent him from attacking others, but to keep the merfolk from attacking him.

Sam and Ford had spent the day in their bunks, recovering from the damage they had endured at the hands of the core. Sam’s damage was mostly psychological, and it took him several hours to fully recover his ability to move, with Mabel checking on him every few minutes. Any long term effects of touching the cable would take time to manifest, but everyone had high hopes for Sam’s complete recovery—it had been years since Bill had played around with their minds, and no side effects had cropped up so far.

Ford, meanwhile, was far weaker physically. He had never let the demon into his mind, as his metal plate prevented its forceful access, but it had still spent two full days draining the energy from his body. As the others went about their business dealing with the aftermath of the assault on the core, the older man spent most of his time sitting in the laboratory, slowly writing down every bit of information he could remember and trying to decipher how it fit into the new, swirling concentrations of anomalies emerging across the globe.

One by one, he had called Stan, Mabel, Dipper, and Pacifica into the laboratory and taken down their account of what had happened while he was unconscious, comparing their testimonies against each other to figure out what the truth was—it was the things that were universally agreed upon that would provide the most productive starting point for deducing the true nature of the core. At one point, Ford had even had a brief conversation with Mermando through the cabin window and over the gunwale.

By the time night had fallen again, he felt strong enough to descend back down to Pescadorado and take part in the celebrations there. In his discussions with the prince, Ford had learned of the noble sacrifice the three elite tiburónes had made to take out the core and save Dipper and Mabel. Ford now felt compelled to go beneath, and to see the city that the soldiers had died to defend.

Mabel had helped Sam into his wetsuit as Stan and Dipper did the same for Ford. Soon, the six humans were completely prepared, each of them wearing the pressure-compensating bodysuits, algae-infused masks, and propelling gloves and flippers. Each of them had an explosive knife strapped to their thighs—the chances of something going wrong now that the core had been destroyed were miniscule, but everyone wanted to be safe. Mermando left a contingent of tiburónes on the surface to guard the _Stan o’ War II_ , and had then personally escorted the honored, air-breathing guests down to his palace.

For the teenagers, who had seen the branching tunnels, meticulously carved entrance hallway, and the grand vista of Pescadorado before, it was a lackluster journey. However, each of them had watched in vicarious astonishment as the Stans descended, seeing the wonder of the underwater spectacle reflected in their eyes.

Both of the Stans had been drinking in the scenery in amazement, even as Dipper and Mabel had occasionally helped Ford swim towards the palace at the far end of the cavern. Even with the assistance of his gloves and flippers, the older man was having difficulty keeping himself stable. He would recover from his captivity in time, but one day had not been nearly enough.

By the time they had arrived at the palace, Ford had been exhausted. While the merfolk were hovering around the table in the throne room, tall stools had been brought in for the humans. Ford had sunk onto the chair graciously, his wrists and ankles filling with ballast as he rested and recovered, eyes still searching the palace and the city in wonder and astonishment.

Everyone had settled into their seats as the food was served. From Mermando’s left at the head of the table, the seating order had been Mabel, Sam, Dipper, Pacifica, Ford, and finally Stan. However, there was now an empty chair where Stan had been.

On the descent, Stan had been remarkably well behaved—but, upon sitting down at the fancy dinner and seeing a wide variety of different foods that he couldn’t eat unless he wanted to drown, his patience had run thin. As grateful as he was to Mermando and the other merfolk for their assistance in rescuing Ford, the prospect of sitting there for hours with his stomach grumbling had been too much.

Luckily, something else in the room had quickly grabbed his attention—the massive tiger shark circling around the ceiling. After a brief moment of panic, Mermando had explained who Rory was. Once Stan had heard that it was possible to ride sharks, there was no distracting him—he wanted nothing more than to immediately saddle up.

Mermando, laughing, had sent Stan and Rory to the shark concourse, along with one of his attendants. There, Stan could practice riding to his heart’s content without disrupting the feast or threatening the other citizens of Pescadorado.

Shortly after Stan departed, the other merfolk had descended upon the table. As the band played on the scaffolding above them, the humans simply took the opportunity to reflect on everything that had transpired. They would certainly have been eating, were it not for the threat of death.

Mabel leaned forward and looked to her right, glancing across Mermando to see Hudson sitting on the other side of the prince. The bandages had been removed from his face, but he still wasn’t completely healed. The flesh around his cheeks was still raw, red, and new, but fresh pink skin was steadily crawling over the injury. His forehead wound had completely healed, since much less material needed to grow back. His hair was tied back from his face, and he too looked at the food on the table before him sadly. He didn’t even have a mask, but eating it simply wasn’t enticing for him anymore.

“I wish this was how it had been when we first came down here,” Dipper sighed, reclining as best he could on his stool. “I mean, ideally we’d have a bigger air bubble so we could all eat, but this is a good party. It’s sad that we had to go through so much to get here, though.”

“I know,” Sam echoed, turning his head to look at the boy seated next to him. “Taking a vacation here would be amazing. If they just did the work to carve out more sump rooms filled with air, and brought some actual beds down here, they could charge _so much_ for people looking for something exotic.”

“Not everything has to be about the money,” Mabel playfully chastised, lightly tapping Sam’s helmet. “They could just make the rooms for people interested in researching the city and having a good time!”

“No, but the money’s always an added bonus,” Pacifica pointed out, licking her lips as the merfolk on the other side of the table passed a platter of crab puffs between each other. At first, the peculiar taste of the whale cheese had been odd and overwhelming, but now she found herself craving its rich and fatty tang. There were so many culinary lessons here that she was going to have to incorporate into the rotating monthly menu at Greasy’s, if she could find the ingredients.

“What would they even use money for down here?” Sam asked, genuinely curious. “They’ve got piles of gemstones, and paper money would dissolve over time. What would the exchange rate be?”

“Sam, if you’re thinking about trying to make a profit off of underwater tourism, I promise that you’ve got better things to do,” Pacifica laughed. “Do you really want to be stuck in a beachside hut selling wetsuits and tickets all your life?”

“Maybe as a summer job!” Sam chuckled in response. “It doesn’t have to be a permanent thing. And frankly, lounging around in a hut on the beach actually sounds like a pretty good way to spend my time.”

“I think you should check with Mermando before you go making any investments,” Mabel mentioned, lightly kicking Sam under the table as she pointed towards the prince.

“Check with me about what?” Mermando asked, overhearing the conversation and leaning in.

“Oh, Sam was just talking about turning your city into a tourist trap,” Mabel replied nonchalantly. “Make it a real cash cow.” She fought to keep a smile off her face as she felt Sam kick her back. Despite the friendly terms that they were all now on, Sam still harbored a good deal of residual anxiety about Mermando, especially when the prince was sitting on his throne. Hudson, keeping to himself on the other side of the mangrove chair, was less of an issue.

“I would not describe any tourist trap as a ‘cash cow,’” Ford remarked from a few feet down the table, easily able to hear the conversations over the wireless headsets. “Even being run by Stanley, the Mystery Shack was rarely ever able to turn a significant profit. And he was only occasionally able to do that by committing tax fraud.”

“The jurisdiction of the IRS ends at the waterline,” Sam commented sarcastically as he turned back towards the prince and struck a conciliatory tone. “I was just remarking about how much money you could make if you wanted to start letting human tourists down here. It would be millions, easily.”

“Maybe someday,” Mermando chuckled as he sat back up in his throne. His signet ring flashed gold, as did large bands around his biceps. The golden rings had been tightly fastened there to cover up the wounds he had received accidentally slicing himself on his sunspear when he was fleeing from the writhing core. “But right now, I think it would be best to keep our city a secret.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Sam acknowledged, looking hungrily at a nearby merman as he tore a moist and perfectly seasoned piece of meat off of a small fish. They would have to ask for leftovers to take up to enjoy on the _Stan o’ War II._ “People aren’t the best about keeping secrets, or treating nature properly. As much as I hate to say it, having humans around would ruin what makes this place special. They would probably ask to install a Starbucks.”

“Hey, coffee isn’t a bad idea,” Pacifica remarked from the other side of Dipper. “Not a Starbucks, but… you know. Something.”

“Yeah,” Mabel echoed emphatically. It had been days since she had had any caffeine. Even the coffee she had made aboard the _Stan o’ War II_ on the way down to the Bahamas had been instant and low-quality. The adrenaline of Ford’s disappearance and her own emotional conflict had kept her going for a long time, but now she was craving a hit of Mabel Juice 2.0.

“I’ll see what I can do about that one,” Mermando murmured thoughtfully. “Coffee modified to grow underwater would be quite interesting. But that’s not exactly what I was talking about when I said that we should keep Pescadorado a secret… I think we’re going to be going through some major changes pretty soon, and I’d rather not shake up the status quo any more than I have to.”

“Changes?” Mabel asked, curious and concerned as she turned towards her friend. “What changes? We beat the mind demon. The vampire problem is over.”

“Not quite yet,” Mermando answered cryptically in response as he glanced over to Hudson. The vampire spun to look at the prince and nodded.

The eyes of every human at the table followed the prince as he rose up from the mangrove throne and hovered in the water at the head of the feasting table. His caramel skin glistened in the light of the cavern—the healing salve his attendants had covered him in had worked wonders for his red burns.

“Attention, everyone!” Mermando shouted, raising his arms in the air and compelling everyone to look at him with his tone of princely authority. “I have an announcement to make.” The movement of trays and plates along the table stopped as the last strains of music coming from the band above echoed away into the city.

As he spoke, Hudson pushed away from the table and floated up into the water next to the prince.

"As many of you are aware,” Mermando continued. “Through the great and noble sacrifice of three of our soldiers last evening, we were able to successfully eliminate an existential threat to our great city. I am sure that many of you have heard rumors about what this threat was. Allow me to clarify what exactly happened, so that these rumors can be dispelled.”

Mabel looked up at Mermando in amazement as he gave his speech, speaking with all of the authority of a real ruler. She looked over to her left and saw Sam gazing at the prince as well, equally impressed.

“The enemy took the form of a large, glowing orb,” Mermando announced. “It had ten tentacles, and attached to those tentacles were hundreds of bodies, which the core was using to harvest energy and grow stronger. The victims of this process were eventually killed and assimilated into the core itself—the captives came from both our great city, and humans sailing the surface above.

“I am sure you are asking yourselves how this unmoving entity was able to capture so many of our people. The answer is simple—the demon possessed the minds of refugee vampires, fleeing from the surface above in the hopes of living a life safe from the tyranny of the sun.”

Hudson clasped his hands in front of him, bowing his head remorsefully. Mabel cocked her head to the side in surprise—neither Mermando nor Hudson had told her that an announcement like this was coming. She smiled, pleased to see that the vampire and the merman were beginning to coexist peacefully.

“Let me emphasize this,” Mermando continued emphatically. “The vampires, who had their bodies and minds broken in the service of this monster, did not attack us willingly. At no time did a vampire freely make a choice to invade our home and kidnap our people. They are blameless in all of this—which brings me to the fine gentleman floating here by my side.”

Hudson rose up in the water slightly higher, waving tentatively to the assembled crowd of officials and elders before him. Their acceptance would be crucial for his successful integration into the underwater society. His eyes flashed to a ruby-tailed mermaid at the far end of the table, but he quickly averted his gaze.

“This is Hudson,” Mermando beamed, grabbing the vampire’s hand and lifting it up above his head. The golden bands around the prince’s arms, covering his bandages, shined in the cool blue light of the cavern walls. “He is a vampire who was unfortunately possessed by the demon, and he invaded our borders. We were able to capture him, and, through the help of my friends from the surface,” he continued, nodding down towards Sam, Pacifica, and the Pines, “we purged the influence of the monster from his mind.”

Exclamations of surprise, wonder, and awe came from around the table as the merfolk clapped loudly, applauding the work that the humans had done in saving their city. They hadn’t even considered the possibility of doing a diamond exorcism, and it was only through the teenagers’ quick thinking that circumstances had allowed for the eventual destruction of the core. They knew how much they owed to Mermando’s friends, and were set on giving them the respect they deserved. 

The teenagers waved back appreciatively, each of them blushing at the praise. Ford, still sitting in his chair and watching the proceedings with an interested eye, smiled proudly.

“Once Hudson was freed,” Mermando continued, “he willingly worked with us to defeat the core. Through the goodness of his own heart, he led us to a secret, hidden passageway that the vampires were using to advance towards our city. In the fight with the core itself, he sustained grievous injuries in order to protect both myself, and our friends from the surface.”

The applause from the merfolk was now somewhat more muted. They recognized the remarkable and amazing thing that Hudson had done, but it was easier for them to praise humans than it was a vampire. Even knowing that he had been manipulated by the core, the presence of a vampire had a bad connotation, unlike humans. Many of the merfolk present had spent their younger years splashing in the wakes of surface boats.

“Hudson is an honorable man,” Mermando emphasized as his speech began to reach its end. “And the challenges that are facing our great civilization are just beginning. As I mentioned earlier, vampires are fleeing underwater in search of a better life here. That migration will not stop simply because the core is gone. We must be prepared to greet these refugees with open arms, and allow them to integrate into our society willingly and happily.”

The response from the elders was now even more muted, and whispers began to circulate among the table at what Mermando was suggesting. As honored and respected as the prince was, he was simply that—a prince. While he had been granted the authority to manage the day to day affairs of Pescadorado, the revolutionary kind of immigration and social program that he was proposing would need royal approval from the king and queen themselves.

“Which is why,” Mermando continued, “I am hereby appointing Hudson as the Minister of Vampire Affairs!” The room was deathly silent, and the teenagers started to look back and forth at each other as they assessed what the fastest way out of the room was—they didn’t want to be caught in the middle of an underwater rebellion. If the elders and officials wanted to overthrow Mermando, or take them as hostages, they could certainly do it.

“I know that this is gravely concerning for many of you,” Mermando said reassuringly. “However, allow me to make two promises. The first is that Hudson’s authority will always be subservient to that of the royal family. The second is that a bottle with this news has already been dispatched to my mother and father, who are currently governing our other territories in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Whatever their response is to this proposal, I swear to abide by it.

“I am certain that you all recognize the inherent need for this office,” the prince concluded. “Whether we like it or not, these vampires are coming, and we need to be equipped for them. At its worst, this office will only be used to provide a stopgap measure until a more permanent solution can be found. At its best, Hudson and I shall work together to develop a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with the vampires, allowing us to defend our interests more effectively both underwater and on land. All royal authority remains within the hands of my family.”

Those final two statements got the attention of the elders. Firstly, their concerns about ceding power, sovereignty, or territory to the incoming vampires had been assuaged. More notably, however, was the idea that the vampires could be used to go on land at night and bring back information, resources, and supplies. The merfolk were powerful underwater, but were physically unable to go anywhere else—now, however, the rare delicacies the land provided, like the carefully portioned fruit on the table before them, seemed much more accessible.

Mermando and Hudson slowly sank back down in their chairs, waiting for a response from the group seated at the feasting table before them. The prince glanced at Mabel worriedly, who reached out and took his hand to reassure him. The merman knew he was taking a risk with this proposal, and even more of one by appointing Hudson to a position of authority. Hudson had his hands clasped in front of his face, hiding his healing wounds as the elders deliberated.

Finally, applause began to fill the room. It started at the end of the table, triggered by the young, ruby-tailed mermaid. Slowly, the other elders and officials joined in support of Mermando’s plan. Their applause was carefully measured, as they still weren’t sure about the implications of the proposal, but Mermando’s promises had been enough to dampen their fears.

Smiles of relief spread across the faces of everyone seated close to the head of the table as the idea passed, if not joyously, at least with flying colors. Hudson balled up his fists and wiped a forming tear away from his eye in happiness—now, he had a place he could call his own, and a goal to work towards for the betterment of his friends and people like him. As a vampire, he innately understood how alienating the process of the transformation was, and aspired to make Pescadorado a more helpful and welcoming place for those who found themselves in his shoes.

Above them, the band started to play again. The music now was not meant for easy listening—the drums were far louder and more regular as the beat reverberated off the walls of the palace and shook the bones of those inside, even more powerfully than the rumble of Hudson’s voice. The guitar and piano were doing fine, coordinated backing string work as they added flourishes to the sound. The saxophone took a leading role, howling beautifully into the water with jazzy, improvised riffs. Mabel’s slight humming started up again as her foot tapped against the leg of her stool in time. 

“I’m glad that’s over,” Mermando sighed, leaning over towards his friends from the surface. “I was worried about how that was going to go.”

“So was I,” Hudson echoed, bending forward to look at Mabel and Sam. “I knew that I would probably be able to stay here, but I’m happy to have the chance to help the other vampires who got possessed.”

“Are you sure there are still any down there?” Dipper asked genuinely. “When the core exploded, it released almost as much energy as a volcano. I’m not sure that any vampires could survive that.”

“Dipper,” Hudson replied, rolling his eyes as he pointed to his face. “If I can survive having half of my face melted away by your stupid lightbulbs, then I think they could survive being boiled for a bit. It would hurt, yes, but they’d survive. Plus, I’m sure there were vampires who were still in the tunnels when it finally blew. They’re probably very lost, and very confused.”

“You’re a good guy, Hudson,” Mabel declared emphatically, trying to reinforce her affection for him as a friend. “Don’t let any of these fish tell you differently. Hudson swallowed in response—being rejected by Mabel obviously still stung, but he was slowly growing to accept it. Having her compliment him was an action that would have once caused his heart to pound and plunged him into confusion, but now only allowed him to appreciate her praise for what it was. Hudson smiled back at her weakly.

“You are,” Sam echoed, causing Mabel to look at him in surprise and astonishment. Now that Sam knew where things stood, he was being much more gracious and casual with both Mermando and Hudson.

No small part of that was because he had ultimately emerged with Mabel’s favor, but he was doing a good job of not gloating or rubbing it in the other boys’ faces. He was even taking special care to avoid holding Mabel’s hand to keep them from seeing them acting like a couple. Instead, their flirting was restricted to playful kicks beneath the table. 

“I can’t thank you enough for everything that both of you sacrificed to help us rescue Ford, and stay alive in the process,” Sam continued. “I know that neither of you can really go on land anymore, but if you ever find yourself on the South Carolina coast, feel free to look me up. What’s mine is yours.” Mabel turned and smiled at the blonde boy—it wasn’t much for someone who’s family was so well off, but the mere promise of safe harbor could be invaluable.

“Really?” Mermando asked with a sly smile and a wink as he lifted off of the mangrove throne and swam directly above Mabel. She craned her neck up to look at him, and watched as he extended a hand down to her. “Then I don’t suppose you would mind if I took Mabel for a dance?” His hair billowed out around him, framing his gap-toothed smile as Mabel frantically looked at the boy next to her. “You’ll have plenty of time for dancing in the future. At least sacrifice this one.”

All around the throne room, as the band continued to play, merfolk couples were pairing up and rising into the water, spinning around each other slowly in time. Since there was no need for fancy footwork, the long tails of the dancers either spiraled around loosely in the water, glimmering like rhinestone-studded curtains, or curled around each other intimately.

“It’s fine by me,” Sam nodded, giving the brunette permission to take the prince’s hand. “You don’t have to ask me if you want to dance. I don’t own you, Miss Starr—and that goes for both of you.” The jealousy he had previously exhibited had faded away completely, lost in his love for Mabel. He understood that she was a person who cared deeply about her friends, and enjoyed having fun with them. Sometimes, that fun could include dancing, so long as things didn’t get any more intimate than that.

Mabel didn’t say anything, instead merely smiling at the blonde boy as she reached underneath the table and squeezed his hand. Then, extending her arm upwards, she took Mermando’s hand for the first time as a genuine friend, allowing herself to be pulled up and away into the water and his waiting, gold-banded arms. 

Together, with Mabel’s flippers and gloves stabilizing her, they spiraled up together to the roof of the palace’s throne room. They finally settled in the water next to the band, slowly rotating around each other. Mabel’s left hand was clasped in Mermando’s right, and the prince’s left hand was positioned gracefully on her upper back, gently guiding her through the motions as they swayed together.

Sam gave a contented sigh and leaned back on his stool, carefully adjusting the ballast in his suit to stay balanced. He looked up and watched as Mabel and Mermando danced, and didn’t feel his heart rate spike one bit—the readout in the corner of his HUD confirmed it.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this, dude?” Pacifica asked, raising a surprised eyebrow at Sam. Dipper, sitting directly next to him, had a similarly concerned expression.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Sam asked with a genuine shrug. “Mabel’s made her decision. There’s no need for me to be upset. Plus, I know that we’ll all be going back to the Southeast Estate for the Fourth of July Party tomorrow night. There won’t be a merman prince there.”

“Character development!” Pacifica clapped lightly, impressed with Sam’s growth. Just as Dipper’s envy and insecurity had gotten the better of him when he was first introduced to the blonde boy, so too had Sam’s envy posed an obstacle to overcome. “What about you?” Pacifica asked, looking past Sam and making eye contact with Hudson, who sat on the other side of the mangrove throne. The vampire had been staring up at the dancing couple wistfully.

“Oh, me?” Hudson replied, pointing at himself. “I’m fine. I’m just happy that I’ve got a place to live now.”

“Yeah, but living involves dancing!” Pacifica fired back enthusiastically. “I can’t stand seeing you sit there all mopey. Would you care to dance with me?” This time, it was Dipper and Sam’s turns to look at Pacifica in surprise—neither of them would have stopped her; the statement was just unexpected.

“You know what?” Hudson replied, rising into the water. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m going to pass for now. There’s a red-tailed mermaid over there that I think I’d like to get to know a little bit better.”

Dipper, Pacifica, Sam, and Ford all watched with proud smiles as Hudson swam forward over the feasting table, passing beneath the couples dancing above him as he approached the black-haired mermaid. She had been sitting off to the side, not dancing with anyone, staring up at the dancers as wistfully as Hudson had been.

“Good for him,” Sam smiled as Hudson struck up a conversation at the other end of the room. “I have no idea how that’s going to work, but he needs more friends down here than just Mermando. Getting in good with the other important families isn’t a bad way to start.”

“Your business sense is impeccable,” Pacifica smirked, leaning back in her stool. She carefully gripped the underside of the seat and inflated her ballast tanks, lifting herself up into the water with her chair. Using her gloves, she navigated next to Dipper and refilled the tanks, sitting down next to her boyfriend and interlacing her fingers with his.

“Are you sure you don’t want to dance?” Dipper asked, glancing over the blonde boy, who was watching the field of spinning couples above them.

By now, Hudson had ascended into the water with the ruby-tailed mermaid for a dance. However, it appeared as though she was mostly dragging the vampire around behind her as she spun—Hudson still wasn’t the best at swimming, and he didn’t have the advantage of gloves and flippers to help him out. Luckily, the girl thought it was terribly funny, as her laughter could easily be heard at the head of the table.

“It may be your only chance to dance with a mermaid,” Pacifica teased, leaning her head against Dipper’s shoulder. “Are you sure you want to waste this opportunity?”

“Well…” Sam murmured, glancing over at the happy couple. “It would be a shame to pass this up. Are you sure it’s okay, though?”

“If it’s okay for Mabel to dance with Mermando, then it’s okay for you to dance with a random mermaid,” Dipper affirmed.

“Besides,” Pacifica chimed in, mockingly seductive, “you have the advantage of being the exotic one here. Use it!”

“You two are terrible, you know that?” Sam laughed as he filled the ballast tanks around his wrists and ankles with air, and kicked off into the water. It was a party, after all—a real party, not like the stiff affairs of the Northwests and Southeasts. This was a party that was meant for dancing.

Dipper, Pacifica, and Ford watched as Sam rose up to the ceiling and scanned the room, before finding a clique of three mermaids floating in one of the throne room’s open windows. They all wished him the fondest luck as he swam towards them, using his natural extroversion in an attempt to playfully woo them—or, at least one of them.

“What about you two?” Ford asked, looking over at Dipper and Pacifica before he was cut off by a coughing fit. “Don’t you want to dance?”

“Maybe in a few minutes,” Pacifica sighed, reclining back against Dipper’s chest and simply enjoying the beautiful spectacle of the dancing merfolk above them. Glistening in the blue lighting of the cavern, their multicolored tails shone like so many disco balls, reflective scales sending rippling patterns of illumination across the walls. Even the spectacle of Hudson, being dragged along by the laughing mermaid, was strangely beautiful.

“Well, you crazy kids just make sure you don’t run off,” Ford replied, slowly inflating his ballasts and rising into the air. Now that he had had a chance to recover from the descent, he felt energetic enough to move around the party. “I’m a little too old for dancing in my current state,” he chuckled, “but I’m going to go over there and talk to those guys. They seem like they might have something interesting to say.” As she spoke, he pointed to a group of five older mermen, each of whom had long, tightly braided beards and heavy guts, talking in a circle over in the corner.

“Have fun!” Dipper called out after his grunkle as the silver-haired man swam away. If Stan had been there, he never would have turned down an opportunity to dance with a mermaid, but even Dipper had to admit that riding sharks would make for a better story—especially if he ever wanted to get back on the dating scene with human women again.

Now, the feasting table was completely abandoned. All that remained on it were half-empty trays of food, and silverware that had been lazily wrapped back up into napkins and tossed down before the dancing started. The roasted barracuda had been picked completely clean.

Dipper briefly pulled his hand away from Pacifica’s, only to wrap his arm around her waist and pull her onto his lap. Pacifica yelped in surprise as she was picked up and moved, but didn’t complain—it always surprised her how much easier it was to move with the advantage of the gloves and flippers.

As Pacifica settled down on her boyfriend’s lap, Dipper clasped his hands around her stomach and squeezed, holding her tight against him. Pacifica, laughing, placed her hands on Dipper’s and gently held them against her, feeling the gentle tickling of his fingers through her wetsuit.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a chance to hold you like this,” Dipper whispered, squeezing even more tightly.

“Shh!” Pacifica chastised him, pinching him playfully. “Don’t forget we’re wearing headsets. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want Mabel or Sam to hear.”

“Or Ford,” Dipper snickered. “You’re right—give me half a second. Establish closed voice communication line. Pacifica.” A sharp click rang through their headsets as the broadcast settings changed at his command.

“Are we safe now?” Pacifica asked slyly.

“We should be,” Dipper confirmed.

“Then why don’t you continue with that thought from earlier?” Pacifica whispered, enjoying the feeling of being held. It wasn’t private, like they were used to, but it was undeniably romantic. The dancing merfolk shone in the water, and the comfort and ease with which Dipper held her made it seem as though they had been dating for far longer than eleven months.

“If you insist,” Dipper smiled, his voice a breathless whisper as well, even though no one else could hear them. He felt an overwhelming urge to kiss her neck and smell her lavender shampoo, and he grew frustrated when the glass of his mask stood in the way. “What I was saying was that it’s been a long time since I’ve held you liked this. I’ve missed it.”

“So have I,” sighed Pacifica, relaxing back into Dipper’s arms. “It hasn’t really been that long, even—remember, I paid Mabel to sleep on the couch a few nights before we left for Charleston?”

“I promise you I remember,” Dipper laughed. “But still—we only left a week ago, and so much has happened since then. I feel like the universe owes us some privacy and a chance to be together.”

“It has felt a little off, hasn’t it?” Pacifica smirked, unable to resist playfully shifting around on Dipper’s lap. “The thin walls in the Southeast Estate, the hammocks on the _Stan o’ War II,_ and the fact that we don’t even have private bedrooms down here. We really haven’t had much time to ourselves.”

“No,” Dipper acknowledged, releasing Pacifica’s waist and grabbing onto her hands. “Still, if I’m being honest, I haven’t really minded it. I mean, I desperately, _desperately_ want to sneak away from Sam and Mabel the second we get back to Charleston—and your wiggling isn’t exactly helping matters,” he commented snidely.

“You noticed?” Pacifica grinned innocently.

“You know full well I did,” Dipper rolled his eyes. “Like I was saying, though, I’ve enjoyed our time together on this adventure. Normally when we get thrown into these situations, we wind up fighting. But all I felt this week was love and acceptance from you. We worked together to fight the challenges that were thrown in our way, and I don’t think it’s too much of a brag to say that we did a pretty dang good job.”

“We killed a dream demon,” Pacifica nodded. “A pretty damn good job, if I do say so myself.”

“Language!” Dipper playfully chastised. For a few moments, the couple was silent, gazing up at the dancers above them.

“We certainly didn’t fight, but I know a couple of people who did,” Pacifica sighed, nodding up towards the roof of the palace. The dancers had traded partners—Sam had taken Mabel away from Mermando, while the prince was spiraling with a blonde, sapphire-tailed mermaid that Sam had brought in from the window.

“You’re right about that,” Dipper acknowledged. “This entire trip was tough on them. Still, I’m proud of Mabel. It was really difficult for her to get over her fears about being in a real relationship, and Mermando and Hudson showing up didn’t help matters—I’m her brother, and I know exactly how deep those fears run. But she still did it!”

“She did,” Pacifica replied, beaming with pride as Mabel and Sam danced just below the ceiling. Since both of them had legs, they were starting to incorporate fancier footwork into their moves, each of them laughing as the other stumbled. The merfolk around them, curious about the new style of dancing, were beginning to experiment on their own. “And so did Sam. He’s been able to get away from his parents a lot, but he’s still a Southeast. I’m a Northwest—just like you know Mabel, I know him. And when you’re raised in a household where you have everything you could ever need, when you finally find something you want that money can’t buy, you really have no idea what to do. I’m glad he’s happy.”

“I’m proud of both of them,” Dipper nodded, causing Pacifica to echo the sentiment with a nod of her own while squeezing her boyfriend’s hand. “I guess that, even if we don’t get a happy ending, it’s good that they get theirs.”

“What part of our ending isn’t happy?” Pacifica asked defensively. “We worked together and helped our friends overcome their own problems and become better, more complete people. I saw you help a confused, scared boy work through his insecurities and find the girl of his dreams. Not entirely unlike another boy I knew once.”

“And who might that have been, Miss Northwest?” Dipper asked playfully. “It’s not like you slacked off either. You were there for Mabel every step of the way, helping her with every question she had.”

“Of course I was,” Pacifica replied matter-of-factly. “Because I’m Pacifica Northwest. I’m the best. So, now that we’ve cleared that up, is this a happy ending?”

“As happy as it can be since we don’t have a room to ourselves,” Dipper remarked slyly, pinching the back of Pacifica’s upper thigh and causing her to jump. She glanced back at her boyfriend, and elbowed him in the stomach when she saw the stupid grin on his face. His expression didn’t change.

“Yeah, well, I suppose we’ll have to rectify that once we get back to Gravity Falls,” Pacifica whispered seductively. “There’s a lot of tension that hasn’t had a chance to be… released yet.”

“Correction, then,” Dipper laughed. “This isn’t just a happy ending. This is a fairytale ending.”

“For everyone involved,” Pacifica nodded, glancing back up at Sam and Mabel, still spinning on the ceiling. When she looked back at Dipper, however, she noticed his expression had slightly darkened. “What is it?”

“I mean, there should probably be some limits on the kind of ending Sam and Mabel get to have,” he stammered. “Really, they haven’t known each other all that long. Not like you and I.”

“You can draw some boundaries with Sam in the morning,” Pacifica offered, rolling her eyes as she pushed herself off of Dipper’s lap. He was being protective of his sister, but what he was saying did make some sense—even though she and Dipper had shared a bed almost immediately after they had officially started dating, there had been years of buildup and flirting beforehand. Sam and Mabel, however, had comparatively little of that. “Just remember that Mabel’s her own person. She can make her own decisions.”

“I know,” Dipper grimaced, shivering as Pacifica extended a hand to him. He took it gratefully, allowing her to pull him up into the water. “It’s just unpleasant to think about. God, is this what it was like for you to talk with Mabel after we started dating?”

“Oh, much worse, I assure you,” Pacifica laughed as the two of them ascended hand in hand up to the palace ceiling, where the saxophone player had begun to slow down and play cooler, smoother melodies. “And we didn’t even have that much to talk about, then.”

“What about now?” Dipper asked as he placed his left hand on the small of Pacifica’s back, their fingers interlacing as he took the lead and began to spin around slowly. “Not bedroom stuff, though. Some things should stay private.”

“I’m sure that Mabel and I will have plenty to gossip about between you and Sam,” she smiled. “You’re both just dumb enough and just smart enough to be an endless source of fascination.”

Dipper couldn’t help but roll his eyes as Pacifica laughed, before gently resting her head against his chest. Even with the glass masks and wetsuits between them, they could feel each other’s heartbeats.

The tails of the merfolk around them glistened and shined in a vibrant and crystalline rainbow of colors as the two couples slowly, joyfully, danced across the roof of the underwater palace.


	32. Secrets

The Bahamian sun shone overhead, illuminating the freshly washed _Stan o’ War II_ at it floated at the entrance to Hogsty Reef. During the party the night before, Mermando had the soldiers guarding the ship scour every inch of it that they could reach, scraping every barnacle and accumulated bit of algae from the hull. The dents that had been bashed into the metal from the battle the night previous had been hammered out expertly. The top half of the cabin was still stained with the accumulated debris of adventuring, but the bottom half was polished to a sheen that reflected the rippling waves.

Ford sat at the stern of the ship in one of the chairs from the kitchen, which he had tied cushions to for comfort during his recovery. His attendance at the festivities last night had been draining—after surviving for weeks in the clutches of the mysterious entity, the only way he had been able to move in the water at had been with the assistance of the mechanical gloves and flippers.

His legs had yet to fully recover, confining him to the main deck of the _Stan o’ War II,_ only able to descend to his bedroom in the hull with assistance. Stan, however, stood proudly within the wheelhouse of the ship, typing coordinates into the ramshackle teleportation console. Once Ford had recovered, he would no doubt insist on completely redoing the wiring and triple-checking Stan’s work on the code that controlled the teleportation engine. A smile teased at the corner of Ford’s lips—his brother never ceased to both surprise and amaze him. 

Dipper, Mabel, Pacifica, and Sam stood on the port side of the ship, leaning over the gunwale as they peered down into the water. Dipper had his hand lightly clinging to Pacifica’s waist as she rested her head against him, savoring the warmth of the sun on her skin. She didn’t even bother applying sunscreen.

Sam had his arms locked into position on the railing, supporting his upper body. His eyes danced to the brunette who stood beside him, now wearing a light purple sundress. She deftly slid her hand over to his and rested her pinkie finger atop his knuckles.

“I’m going to miss you, Mermando,” Mabel called out to the prince, who floated on his back in the water with a sad smile on his face. His hair billowed out around him freely, and his tail drifted lazily beneath the waves. His hands were clasped behind his head in a pose of relaxation—up here on the surface, with his city protected from the encroaching threat of the orange egg, he had earned a vacation.

“And I will miss you as well, Mabel,” Mermando echoed, his mournful Spanish accent discoloring the tropical paradise. “Of course, that doesn’t mean you have to be a stranger. That boat can teleport now—you can visit any time you like.”

“Any time I can convince my grunkles to come and pick me up, at least,” Mabel smirked, casting a glance over at Ford. He appeared to be making the most of the tropical setting as well, wearing sunglasses and one of Stan’s Hawaiian shirts instead of his usual turtleneck. His hair was spiky and unkempt, having not yet had a chance to wash out the accumulated salt. It was a jarring difference, but he deserved to recover in comfort. With a playful smirk, he gave Mabel a thumbs up.

“We’ll keep a wetsuit and a mask stashed here for you,” Mermando replied wistfully.

One of the waterproof bags they had used during their descent had been packed with wetsuits, gloves, flippers, and masks. If the prince ever wanted to host guests from the surface, all he would need to do would be to refresh the photosynthetic algae.

“And that goes for all of you!” Mermando chirped, pointing towards the other teens. “Dipper, Pacifica—I really can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done in helping my city. Without you, we never could have captured Hudson and located the source of the infection.”

“Hudson kind of found us,” Pacifica chuckled. “But thank you anyway.” The vampire had not arisen to the surface to wish the humans goodbye—with the sun shining out so brightly overhead, and refracted by every droplet of water in the ocean, not even his sunspear-proof suit would have been enough. He had wished the group a fond farewell the night before, and immediately begun his work of rescuing the newly-freed vampires who had been scattered across the seafloor in the explosion.

“I was the one who slowed him down,” Dipper laughed. “Don’t give away my credit.” Then, on a more serious note, he locked eyes with the prince. “And Mermando, if you ever notice any other odd things happening in the oceans, send us a bottle. We’re still not sure what that… thing was. There’s a chance it could crop up again, especially if the patterns of anomalies we’re picking up on our equipment keep getting more intense.”

“My tiburónes will be vigilant,” Mermando assured him. “I’ve already dispatched messengers to my parents and brother in the other oceans. If anything starts to squirm, we’ll let you know right away.”

Dipper nodded, smiling as Mermando leaned forward and started to swim up to the boat. Despite his dislike of the merman, they had overcome their difficulties and worked together when everything was at stake. At the end of the day, they were simply two men who wanted what was best for their families and their people, even if their personalities clashed.

The prince then briefly sank into the water, before bursting out just as dramatically as he had the night he saved the _Stan o’ War II_ from the vampiric assault. Mabel and Sam flinched as they were showered with water, and Mermando grabbed ahold of the railing in front of them. Supporting his entire body weight with one muscular arm, he offered his hand to Mabel.

Mabel briefly glanced at Sam, who nodded in approval. An easy smile broke out across Mabel’s face. The discomfort she had feared was quickly beginning to dissipate, and she could already see a future where Sam, and all of her other friends, would be able to get along without tearing at each other’s throats.

Mabel curtsied sarcastically as she took Mermando’s hand. He brought it to his lips and, now that Mabel was no longer wearing the mechanized gloves, kissed directly against her soft, smooth skin. He released her hand and leaned backwards, preparing to fall into the water with a splash. Sam backpedaled, trying to avoid being drenched.

Instead, Mabel rushed forward, wrapping her arms around the exposed, sopping wet torso of the prince and pulling him close against her. For a moment, Mermando was frozen in shock. Then, closing his eyes, he hugged her in return. His bottom lip quivered as he held tight against the small of her back, but then he steeled his expression. A broad, genuine, gap-toothed smile spread across his face they released each other.

Mabel stepped back, holding her arms out against her side as she realized with a happy laugh how much of the front part of her dress had been soaked. It was a minor inconvenience, however—they would be back at the Southeast Estate in mere minutes, where she could change and prepare for the Fourth of July Party in earnest.

Gently, Mermando lowered himself into the water and began to drift away from the boat.

“Sam!” he called out as the blonde boy approached the railing to stand next to Mabel. The dripping girl looked up at him with a happy smile, her eyes shining. “Be good!” It was a simple command, but Sam knew how much of Mermando’s affection for Mabel was captured in the phrase. He couldn’t be there for her in the ways that she needed, but he would do his best to make sure that the man she had chosen was. Sam raised his and waved goodbye as Mermando leapt out of the water, casting a rainbow of reflective blue-green scales and shimmering water droplets into the air.

From beneath the boat, a sleek, torpedo like shadow rocketed through the water, arcing straight towards the prince. With a laugh, Mermando deftly dove underwater and grabbed ahold of Rory’s fin, swimming with the tiger shark in a circle around the ship.

“And Dipper!” Mermando shouted as they completed a lap. “Remember what we talked about!”

“You got it!” Dipper bellowed back, cupping his hands around his mouth to ensure that his words reached the prince.

Mermando then dove beneath the waves, swimming alongside his shark as they made a direct line for the exit of Hogsty Reef and the open ocean. The teenagers all craned their necks to watch as he became smaller and smaller, until the sun shining off of the prince’s scales were indistinguishable from the glistening waves.

In the distance, Mermando leapt from the water one final time and gave a chirping call before splashing powerfully into the water, and vanishing downwards.

“What did you two talk about?” Pacifica asked as they all stepped back from the railing with a sigh. Sam wrapped his arm around Mabel’s shoulders and pulled her close to him, as drenched in saltwater as she was. Her hands swung up around his waist, squeezing him tightly.

“The best techniques for whittling,” Dipper replied with a wink. Pacifica rolled her eyes—it was a bad excuse, even if wood hadn’t been more valuable than diamonds in the city below the waves. Whatever it was the two men had discussed, it obviously didn’t involve Pacifica. If she really wanted to know, she could pry it out of her boyfriend later.

“Are we done saying goodbye to the flounder yet?” Stan chuckled from his position in the wheelhouse, leaning over the protective railing and peering down at the stern of the ship. Ford, using all of his effort, turned his chair around to face his rescuers.

“We’re good!” Mabel laughed, giving a thumbs up to her grunkle. “Let’s see what this teleportation engine can really do!”

“What about you, Sixer?” Stan called down to his brother.

“Are you sure that you compensated for the differences in the tides correctly?” Ford shouted back, the loudest he had spoken since his rescue the previous night.

“I didn’t learn how to write in see-plus-plus just to have you question my work!” Stan fired back snidely, though the smile on his face betrayed his sarcasm. “I did a good enough job to rescue your sorry butt, at least!”

“Well, if it’s good enough to get me from three thousand feet underwater back to the surface, then I suppose it’s good enough to get us from Hogsty Reef to Charleston,” Ford confirmed. Satisfied, Stan turned away from the others gathered on the rear deck and began double checking the information he had input into the console. “Just make sure you take us a few miles offshore,” he continued. “I don’t want our freshly washed ship to wind up bumping into a sandbar.”

As Stan prepared the _Stan o’ War II_ for teleportation, Dipper walked over to the hatch leading into the hull. The mount in the center of the floor had proven remarkably stable, given that Stan had installed the engine by himself.

From within the bowels of the boat, the blue and orange lights contained within the glass spheres flickered and pulsed. Though the vibrancy of the lights could scarcely compete against the luminous Bahamian sun, they were still marvelous to watch as the engine began to glow brighter, triggered by Stan’s inputs on the wheelhouse console.

“Hold on, everybody!” Stan warned as he glanced back, making sure that everyone was safely standing on the boat. The actual teleportation itself was a smooth process, but everyone reached out to hold onto the railings and each other as Stan flipped up the clear plastic panel protecting the lever on the console from being accidentally triggered. Ford muttered a prayer under his breath as he locked the legs of his chair against the deck, and hung onto the railing with white knuckles.

With a solid pull of the lever, the lights on the glimmering engine shone out even more brightly, flashing in a series of pulses. During the chaos of the combat the night before, even though everyone had been teleported, they hadn’t been paying much attention to what the process was like. Now, they had a front row seat.

Ten feet away from the boat, on either side, the air began to shake and waver like asphalt on a hot day. The light passing through the boundary warped, split into a myriad rainbow of majestic colors as small gaps began to appear in the space around them. Peering through the tears, they could see that the water was much greener, the air much more humid, and the sky far grayer on the other side.

Now the engine began to work in earnest—the pinprick holes began to expand, crawling across the white Bahamian sands and replacing them with the distant green line of the Carolina coast. From the outside of the ship, it would appear as though the boat were being steadily eaten away. From within the bubble, however, it was the landscape itself that changed, similarly eaten away and replaced by the scenery of a different place entirely.

Finally, with a sharp pop, the _Stan o’ War II_ fully completed its teleportation. The warped and shaking air around it rushed away from the ship in a burst of heat as the craft collapsed a few inches down into the water before bobbing back up—Stan’s compensation for the tides had not, in fact, been perfect. Within the hull, the teleportation engine emitted a high-pitched whine as the shifting colors contained within it began to dim. Around the ship, the bubble of clear Caribbean water they had teleported along with them quickly vanished, swirled away by the encroaching green Atlantic.

A smile spread across Stan’s face as Ford let out a sharp breath that he didn’t realize he had been holding. He checked the compass and swung the ship around, firing up the regular engines and charting a course for the Southeast Estate. The white house was already visible in the distance, the sunlight reflecting off of the large rose window in the main dining hall. 

“I’ve never realized how differently the air smells here,” Sam observed as he lightly patted himself up and down, making sure that everything had been teleported properly. The engine had functioned perfectly. He inhaled deeply, savoring the feeling of not just fresh air in his lungs, but the air of his home.

The air was just as salty as it had been in the Bahamas, but it now carried the scent of rain, leaves, soil, and thunder. Neither the water nor the air was as clean or as clear, but it was only in those particles that flavor and sensation existed, a deviation from the norm—paradise became boring rather quickly. Simply being able to walk around without being constantly assaulted by one’s own recycled air, tainted with the odor of algae and fish, was liberating.

It was early in the morning on the Fourth of July, and they were only a few miles away from the Estate. The plane with Stephen, Sophia, and Simon was not scheduled to land until noon, and the other party guests were not due to arrive until five in the evening. There would be plenty of time to get cleaned up and dressed before the fancy festivities.

Everyone breathed with a newfound ease—even the spectacle of the stressful party before them couldn’t dampen their spirits. Last night, they had celebrated together the things that really mattered—friendship, love, and survival. This was merely performance.

“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes!” Stan called out from the wheelhouse. “Just the same dock as before?” he asked Sam loudly.

“Yup!” Sam replied, bouncing up and down on his heels, grateful to feel the weight of gravity pulling him down properly again. “Or you could just let us off here and we could swim.” Mabel punched him in the arm playfully, grinning as she did so—she had someone to punch.

“Not a bad idea!” Stan chuckled. “But I don’t think the ladies would like that, and I’m a proper gentleman.” Behind him, both Mabel and Pacifica stuck out their tongues. “Either way, you’d better get below deck and start packing up your stuff.”

“But that’s always the saddest part,” Mabel pouted as she turned towards the hatch. Her experiences below the waves had been painful and traumatic, but the days they had all spent together simply traveling to the Bahamas, fishing and singing, had been magical—even, comparatively speaking, when she had almost been crushed during the teleportation engine test. “Zipping up your suitcase to leave is such a bad sound.”

“It’s always been my favorite,” Dipper countered, striding towards the hatch behind Mabel and Sam. “Because it means that you’re going home. Going new places is fun and exciting, but there’s nothing like a familiar ceiling, a soft bed, and the people you love.”

“I thought the people you loved were with you on the boat,” Pacifica remarked snidely.

“They were, slash are,” Dipper elaborated. “But there are better places to have fun than this boat.” He turned, and offered Pacifica a sly wink. A soft pink blush filled her cheeks, but she soon calmed the flutter in her stomach. She was grateful that no one else had seen. Behind her, Ford gave a light chuckle as he started to massage his legs.

“I take offense at that,” Stan chimed in as the engines surged to life, pushing the _Stan o’ War II_ closer to the coast. “There’s nothing more fun than relaxing in a chair with a line in the water and a Pitt Cola in your hand.” Dipper, Mabel, and Pacifica looked at each other and rolled their eyes—they were old enough now that Stan didn’t need to use Pitt Cola as a metaphor. The brand didn’t have as much of a presence outside of Oregon, however, so the reference went over Sam’s head.

“Relaxing, maybe, but not fun,” Dipper nodded as he took the stairs into the hold. “I might add an audiobook or something.”

Pacifica waited for a sarcastic reply from the wheelhouse, but none came. Either Stan hadn’t heard his nephew, or he was busy with piloting the ship. Glancing up, she could see him reaching into the large pocket on the front of his shirt.

She shrugged and took a step after Dipper, but stopped when Stan’s voice finally did ring out from above her, but not with the sarcastic reply she had been expecting.

“Hey, blondie,” Stan called out from his position atop the wheelhouse as Mabel and Sam vanished into the hold to pack their things. Dipper turned around and looked at his girlfriend with a concerned expression. “Wait up a second.” She waved him ahead casually—whatever the older man had to say, she could hear it on her own. Dipper shrugged and descended the steps into the ship.

Stan looked the wheel over one more time, making sure that the autopilot was steering the ship correctly. He would need to take over the piloting once they approached the coast to actually dock the ship, but for now, it was secure. Grunting, he placed his foot on the ladder and began to descend to the deck of the ship.

It was always surprising to Pacifica that Stan could go from being such a hero as he had been during the initial vampire attack and when he had rescued them all from the cavern, to the same old man he had always been in the Falls—maybe there wasn’t a real difference. Ford, staring out at the foam churned up in the wake of the ship’s engines, rocked gently on the back legs of his cushioned chair.

Pacifica waited patiently, hands clasped in front of her as Stan turned and approached her. The older man brushed the gray hair out of his eyes and gave a light cough, clearing his throat as he reached for his shirt pocket. He glanced to the right and kicked the hatch leading into the hull of the ship closed, where Dipper, Sam, and Mabel were packing. He placed his foot on it, just to keep them confined in case they tried to escape.

“Ford, cover your ears,” Stan instructed his brother with a supple edge in his voice. “I can’t have you hearing what I’m about to say.” Ford shrugged and obediently lifted his hands to the side of his head.

“What is it, Stan?” Pacifica asked nervously as Stan pulled a folded piece of beige cloth from his pocket—from the outside, it looked like a treasure map, or possibly an old land deed.

As he unfolded it, however, it became apparent what it was—a fishing hat with a wide brim and a white band, and several fishhooks stuck through the cloth. The top of the hat had holes punched in it for ventilation. And in the very front, her name, Pacifica, was stitched into the fabric with bright, colorful letters. It was even spelled correctly.

“That’s Grunkle Stan to you, blondie,” Stan chuckled before rubbing his neck in embarrassment. “Look, I just figured that, if you’re really going to be sticking around with the dipstick, you ought to have a hat in case we ever wind up going fishing again, ya’ know?”

“But…” Pacifica stammered as she ran her fingers over the stitches. They were uneven, and made with thick thread, but the letters of her name weren’t going anywhere. “I thought I was blondie. Why does the hat say Pacifica?”

“Because I’m the one who calls you blondie, blondie,” Stan jabbed, pointing his finger at her. “That’s my name for you. If you lose the hat, no one’s going to know whose it is, and they’ll just give it to the first blonde kid they see. But everyone knows Pacifica Northwest.”

Pacifica stared down at the hat and didn’t say anything, simply savoring the feeling of the rough fabric against her fingers.

“Or I can change it!” Stan frowned. “If you don’t like it, or if… you don’t want to go fishing. I mean, it’s not Gucci or anything, but I don’t think you’d want to stick fishhooks through something that costs tha-“

He was cut off as Pacifica stepped forward and wrapped him in a tight hug. Stan stumbled back, caught off guard by the much shorter girl’s embrace. After a moment, he extended his arms and wrapped them around Pacifica’s shoulders, squeezing her tight against his gut. Just as when Mabel had hugged Mermando, the gesture said more than words ever could.

Pacifica sniffled, holding back tears. Stan didn’t smell the best, and his arms were hairy, but there was something satisfying about being held by him, a hug from a trusted grandfather like she had never had. After a few moments, she stepped away, leaving him to hold his hands behind his back awkwardly.

“It’s perfect, Grunkle Stan,” Pacifica declared, popping the cap on top of her long blonde locks and peering out from beneath the brim. Part of her had been worried about the fishhooks catching on her hair, but Stan had angled them precisely.

“I’m glad,” Stan coughed, before clapping his hands loudly and leaning in with a whisper. “If you could, maybe fold it back up when you go downstairs to pack. There’s no need to make Sam jealous.”

“Well he just got here,” Pacifica remarked sarcastically, though she immediately took off the hat and rolled it up, concealing the colorful letters that spelled her name. “He’s got to earn it.”

“And there’s a lot of work to put in before he gets there,” Ford laughed, his hands still clasped over his ears. Stan shot a withering glance towards the back of his brother’s head—he had been able to hear everything.

“Have you been eavesdropping this entire time?” Stan accused, walking up behind Ford aggressively.

“Of course not,” Ford chuckled. “I didn’t hear a word.” Pacifica clutched the hat tight against her chest, smiling as Stan rapidly rapped his knuckles against Ford’s head.

“How are you doing?” Stan asked, now completely sympathetic. “Do you want another drink?”

“Eh, I’m fine,” Ford answered, rattling around the soda that remained in the bottom of his can. “If you could help me move over to the port railing, though, that would be nice. A change of scenery.”

“I gotta tell ya’, Sixer, it’s just more water,” Stan warned as he immediately clasped hands with Ford and lifted him out of the chair, helping him to limp to the left. He leaned back and grabbed the chair, dragging it along behind him. 

Pacifica sniffled again and turned around, bending down to lift up the hatch leading into the hull of the boat. Leaning it up against the wall of the cabin, she quickly descended into the room she and her friends had shared on the journey to the Bahamas. Some signs of the vampire attack still remained, from scratches in the wooden floorboards to the crust of blood that had soaked through Dipper’s hammock.

For the most part, though, all Pacifica remembered were the good times—coming back to her hammock, exhausted after a long day of fishing and cooking, or simply relaxing on the deck as the sea breeze danced across her nose. She gave a melancholy sigh as she looked around and saw Mabel, Dipper, and Sam quickly packing up.

Neither Sam nor Dipper had brought many things with them, and their bags already sat zipped, ready and waiting by the staircase up to the deck.

Sam instead stood next to Mabel, helping her delicately fold up her yarn and tuck her knitting needles in amongst her clothes. One of the needles, normally painted a bright blue, was still stained with the crusty residue from where she had stabbed one of the vampires. She had placed the soiled needle in a plastic bag, to be washed once they had returned to land. It wouldn’t do just to throw the tool away and have a mismatched set of needles.

Dipper was sitting on one of Pacifica’s two suitcases, trying to force the thick plastic case down to where he could zip it shut. Pacifica rolled her eyes as she approached—it was a kind gesture for him to try and pack for her, but she was certain that he hadn’t arranged things correctly. For now, it was pointless to worry—they were rapidly approaching the shore, and she would have to unpack once they were back at the Estate anyway.

“I know this sounds weird,” Pacifica began as she approached the suitcase that had Dipper had not yet defiled—her dresses and other clothing were still meticulously folded in place. “But I think I’m kind of going to miss this old boat.”

The blonde and the brunette on the other side of the ship glanced back at her—Sam’s expression one of pleasant surprise, and Mabel’s one of playful exasperation. Dipper merely smirked as he finally managed to seal her suitcase with a sharp zip.

“Well, duh, Pacifica,” Mabel replied as she rolled her eyes. “You get to spend time with Stan and Ford on the boat. And see the world, and experience new things all the time! You can’t say that for Greasy’s.”

“Hey, the Greasy’s menu changes every month,” Pacifica fired back, deftly bending over and tucking Stan’s present beneath one of Dipper’s white t-shirts that had mysteriously made its way into her suitcase. “And it changes a lot more than the water. The ocean goes green to blue and hot to cold, and that’s it.”

“Well, that, and the fact that you might encounter a merman and his giant underwater city,” Dipper laughed as he stood up, lifting his girlfriend’s suitcase up from its resting place on one of the plastic supply totes. The scabs on his arms dimly reflected the light shining in from the hatch outside, and the glow pouring out from the teleportation engine in the center of the hull. If they ever wound up sleeping in the hold of the _Stan o’ War II_ again, they would have to remember to bring a sheet to place over the engine.

“That was a bit unexpected,” Pacifica nodded, reaching out to where her straw sunhat hung on a peg in one of the support beams. The sweetgrass flower Dipper had purchased for her in Charleston was still tucked into the red band, and still gave off a pleasant scent, however faintly. “And the circumstances could have been better, but I did enjoy it when we weren’t on the brink of death.”

“We’ll have to come back,” Mabel interjected from across the room, tucking the final pieces of her knitting into her suitcase and zipping it shut. Just as Dipper had done for Pacifica, Sam lifted the suitcase and wheeled it over the hatch, ready to leave. “We’ll make sure there’s nothing on the weirdness radar first, though.”

“That shouldn’t be too difficult,” Dipper chuckled as he shouldered his bag, casting a final look around the interior of the ship. There were still some obvious signs of damage from where the ship had been caught by the core’s tentacle in the battle two nights ago, but the merfolk had done an admirable job of repairing it. There were no leaks, and the bends and creases in the metal only added more character to the _Stan o’ War II._ “Especially since this thing can teleport now. We won’t need to drive or take planes ever again.”

“But driving’s fun,” Pacifica smiled as she zipped up her second suitcase and moved it to the floor with a gentle swing. Everybody was now packed, and ready to disembark from the ship and return to the Southeast Estate. “Good things happen on the road.”

“Plus, the teleportation engine’s on a boat,” Sam laughed, pointing at the glowing structure in the center of the hull. “And it’s not exactly mobile. We could only teleport to somewhere with a river or a lake. Plus, I don’t think we should beam right into a marina or anything—it’s probably best to keep the teleportation engine a little bit of a secret.”

“Land ho!” Stan’s voice echoed out from above deck. The teenagers rolled their eyes—they had been able to see the Carolina coast ever since they had left the Bahamas. But, reaching in from outside, they could hear the steady drone of chirping insects in the trees. The shadows of green branches overhead splayed across the ship as it approached the dock.

“And it’s Stan and Ford’s ship,” Pacifica remarked as the teenagers walked to the hatch and gathered up their belongings. “They’d have to be willing to come and pick us up.”

“They love us!” Mabel chirped as she led the way back up to the deck. “And it’s not like teleporting is inconvenient—it’s instant. All they have to do is type in some numbers.” Emerging onto the deck, they all squinted as the sun shone through the clouds. Dipper quickly put on a pair of aviator sunglasses, while Pacifica’s eyes were shielded by her straw sun hat.

As they approached the Southeast Estate, the teenagers all gathered around the port railing. Ford, the breeze whistling through his silver hair, looked up at them with a smile.

Against the white backdrop of the main house, they could see workers preparing for the evening’s festivities. Every window on the Estate was hung with red, white, and blue bunting. Numerous small, circular tables were being set up among the trees in the backyard, surrounded by wicker chairs. Each table had a small bouquet of patriotic flowers in the center, along with small white candles in glasses ready to be lit. Though the main meal would be served in the dining hall, the guests would retreat to the backyard with their drinks for the fireworks display once the moon had risen.

The engines of the _Stan o’ War II_ began to grow quieter as Stan piloted the ship into the small inlet that housed the Southeast family’s personal dock. Sam’s small sailboat still floated in the water, but there was now a much larger ship moored next to it.

The yacht, which dwarfed even the _Stan o’ War II,_ was being loaded with crates upon crates of fireworks. The boxes were being arranged on the uppermost deck of the ship and wired to a computer, ready to launch its coordinated, explosive display at the push of a button. The workmen who were moving the crates stopped and looked in amazement at the green-hulled trawler as it slid into position alongside the dock.

Stan cut the engines, and Sam vaulted over the ship’s railing, landing on the dock and doing a light jog. Dipper, still standing on the deck, reached down and threw a thick white rope to the blonde boy. Sam knelt down and lashed the cable to the cleats on the dock, dragging the _Stan o’ War II_ to a halt. The two boys then sprinted to the front of the boat, where they proceeded to do the same thing again.

Mabel and Pacifica, meanwhile, extended the gangway down from the deck of the ship to the pier. Ford, trying to be as helpful as he could in his injured state, undid the clasp that held the railing gate in place and pushed it open, allowing the girls to begin passing their luggage to Dipper and Sam. Behind them, Stan slowly made his way down from the wheelhouse.

Once the luggage had been transferred to the dock, Dipper and Sam stepped aside, allowing Pacifica to step down from the ship. Dipper, however, then immediately rushed back up the gangway to wrap both Stan and Ford in a hug. Mabel, who had never left the deck, joined in.

Pacifica and Sam looked at each other on the dock, smirking as the Pines embraced each other. Ford, still sitting in his chair, didn’t squeeze as tightly as he normally did.

“Come on, come on,” Stan chuckled, stepping back from the hug and pushing the twins away. “You’re flying back to Gravity Falls once this stupid party is over. We’ll see each other then.”

“What?” Mabel asked in surprise as Dipper took her hand and started guiding her down the gangway. She walked backwards, continuing to face her grunkles as she descended to the dock. “I thought you were going to go back to sailing the high seas.”

“We will, eventually,” Ford smiled as he clicked the railing gate shut and Stan pulled up the gangway. The four teenagers now stood on the pier, looking up at the Stans on their ship. Stan leaned nonchalantly over the railing, while Ford reclined in his cushioned chair. “But I could use a few weeks off to recover, and we can make it back to Gravity Falls Lake in minutes. Besides, the swirl of activity we noticed around the perimeter of the Gravity Well is still happening, and there’s no better place to research that than in the eye of the storm itself.”

“Let’s just make sure you can stand before you start harassing the gnomes,” Stan chided, patting his brother on the shoulder.

In response, defiantly, Ford latched his hands around the railing in front of him and pulled himself to his feet. He was still unsteady, and needed the metal bars for support, but he was standing. After some recovery time in the Mystery Shack, under the watchful eyes of Stan, Soos, and Melody, he would be in prime gnome-harassing shape in no time at all.

“Yeah, yeah,” Stan rolled his eyes at Ford’s proud, beaming smile. He then turned and started to climb back up the ladder to the wheelhouse, ready to take the _Stan o’ War II_ back out to the ocean for teleportation. The kids, he knew, needed their time to prepare for the party. Dipper and Sam, meanwhile, walked to the bow and stern of the ship and undid the ropes fastening it to the dock, tossing the limp cables back onto the craft.

“Hey, wait a second!” Pacifica shouted as Stan turned the key and revved the engines back to life. “If you’re going back to the Falls, then why do we have to take a stupid plane back? You could just come back and get us.”

“It builds character, blondie!” Stan smirked, chuckling at her distraught expression as he began to back the boat out and away from the marina. “Plus, you’ve got the dipstick and the girl version of the dipstick there to keep you company. We’ll pick you up from the airport, at least!” Pacifica’s jaw dropped in disbelief, only to hear Ford cackling with laughter.

“Why don’t you tell them the real reason, Stanley?” he called up to his brother as he sat back down on his chair, exhausted from even the small amount of effort it had taken to stand. “You want to get as far away from the ocean as possible so the mermen can’t track you down.”

“Why would they try to track him down?” Dipper asked in a combination of curiosity, amusement, and sternness. Stan, for his part, immediately started backing the _Stan o’ War II_ away from the dock as quickly as possible as a blush rushed into his cheeks.

“Let’s just say that he has some new jewelry,” Ford winked. “Though how exactly he intends to sell it for cash without raising a bunch of questions is beyond me.”

“Did you steal from them!?!” Dipper shouted back at Stan, the ship now too far away for them to speak easily. When Stan had been off riding the sharks during the feast, he had been gone for a suspiciously long time. Stan spun the craft around in the water and revved the engines, heading back out to sea. However, he couldn’t resist turning around in the wheelhouse and shouting at the teenagers on the dock.

“It’s not like they needed it!” he bellowed back as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of pearls, rubies, sapphires, and gold nuggets. The crown jewel of the collection was the massive diamond that he had pried off of the tip of Mabel’s sunspear. The gemstones glistened in the Carolina sun, glimmering and shining in a rainbow of crystal colors.

Dipper was at a loss for words, and simply let his arms flop limply by his side as the _Stan o’ War II_ exited the marina and headed out past the breakers, roaring away into the ocean. From the wheelhouse and the deck, both of the Stans waved back as they receded into the distance.

“Eh, Mermando’s got more gems than he knows what to do with,” Mabel chuckled as she walked up next to her brother, waving back as their grunkles successfully made it out into the open ocean. Dipper felt a gentle pressure in his left hand as Pacifica interlaced her fingers with his. Sam stepped up to the other side of Mabel, though he didn’t hold her hand.

From within the _Stan o’ War II,_ the orange and blue glow of the teleportation engine shone out through the hatch as Stan modified the coordinates and pulled the lever. Around the ship, rifts began to appear as streaks of red and green swirled around the ship. Peering through to the other side of the bubble, the teenagers on the dock could barely catch a glimpse of Gravity Falls Lake, bordered by towering mountains and serviced by an old bait shop. Mabel continued waving until the _Stan o’ War II_ had completely vanished in a flash of light.

The workmen on the dock who were loading the fireworks shook their heads, unable to believe what they had seen. But, deciding that it was above their pay grade, they soon turned around and continued their preparations for the party. Collectively, the teenagers gave an immense sigh of relief.

Even when they had been traveling back to the Estate, it hadn’t seemed as though their adventure beneath the sea was truly over. So long as they were on the water, there was the possibility that a merman or a vampire could launch onto the deck and drag them all back down again. Now, however, there were solid wood planks beneath their feet, and green leaves casting them in soft shadows.

“Shall we?” Sam offered with a smile, turning and gesturing up towards the Estate. He reached down and picked up his duffel bag, and reached for Mabel’s suitcase.

Mabel grabbed the handle before he did, causing him to straighten up unexpectedly. He had wanted to be chivalrous and carry her luggage for her, and wilted when he was denied the chance. However, a new, broader smile appeared on his face when he felt Mabel’s fingers interlace with his.

Sam glanced down from his hand and up to Mabel’s eager, happy face. She ran her fingers over his knuckles, enjoying the texture of the callouses and soft wrinkles on his skin. She had rarely had the opportunity to hold hands with someone before in the way that she held Sam’s now, simply walking from place to place. Sam had held several hands before—but none meant as much to him as the one he held now.

Dipper and Pacifica glanced at each other and rolled their eyes as they followed Sam and Mabel down the dock to the path that led to the Estate. Dipper held his duffel bag and one of Pacifica’s suitcases, while Pacifica wheeled her remaining luggage behind her. Regardless of who held what, they didn’t have enough hands for holding—but they really didn’t need to.

The wheels of the suitcases clattered on the concrete walkway as the teenagers walked towards the Estate. As they did, they took in more of the sights of the party preparations.

Staff moved around the property in a flurry, carrying tablecloths and boxes full of champagne glasses. The actual wine was kept in specially refrigerated boxes, and was being moved into the kitchen on carts. A temporary bar was being set up on the backyard patio, ready to cater to all of the guests’ beverage needs. 

A large metal smoker had been wheeled onto the driveway and was already flaming hot as food was prepared for the evening’s festivities. The scent of roasting barbecue, sweet with tomato and pungent with vinegar and mustard, filled the air and overwhelmed the natural scent of the surrounding ocean and trees. It was a mouth-watering scent, with the slow-cooked pork falling off the bone as fat dripped on the burning wood below.

The Fourth of July Party was supposed to be a casual get together, populated with family friends and business associates—a place for the rich and powerful to mingle and conspire together to dream up new ways of becoming even more rich and even more powerful. Supposedly, the barbecue was a more common food that it was okay to relax while eating.

However, it never turned out that way—the dress code was slightly looser, but the party was just as formal as ever. Parties that involved fully-stocked bars, tuxedoed waitstaff, and an expensive bourbon glaze on the food could only ever be so casual.

The cars of Stephen and Sophia Southeast were nowhere to be seen—they hadn’t returned from the airport with Simon yet, and as such would have no idea that Sam had absconded for the week with their guests. The temporary workers didn’t care enough to tattle, and the permanent chefs and maids liked Sam too much to betray his trust. Soon, however, both Sam and Pacifica’s parents would arrive, and they would all have to pretend as though the events of the past week had never happened.

Pacifica glanced ahead at Sam and Mabel, leaning against each other as they walked hand in hand up towards the Estate. She grimaced, and swallowed—when she had first gotten together with Dipper, she knew how powerful the desire was to spend every moment simply enjoying each other’s company and touch. However, tonight was not a good time for it. She cleared her throat to get the attention of the couple walking ahead of her.

“I know you two want to be all lovey-dovey now,” Pacifica murmured, gesturing with her head towards Mabel and Sam’s interlaced fingers. “But you’d better cut that out once the party starts.”

“What?” Mabel asked defensively. “Why?” She squeezed Sam’s hand even more tightly.

“Because when my parents found out that Dipper and I were dating, my dad punched a moose,” Pacifica commented. It was a funny anecdote, but the lesson behind it was as serious as ever.

“And our parents embarked on a coordinated effort to split you apart,” Sam sighed as he realized what Pacifica was saying. He relaxed his grip and let his fingers slip from Mabel’s, who looked at him in shock and betrayal. “I’m sorry, Mabel,” he apologized, “but I think Pacifica is right on this one.”

“She’s right that we should hide the fact that we like each other from your parents?” Mabel started to shout, though she quickly toned down her voice. Even she recognized that making a scene was a bad idea—the more attention they drew to themselves, the more likely it was that the waitstaff would think something was amiss. “Dipper and Pacifica never hid their relationship. He marched right up to Mr. Northwest and told him what was happening.”

“Yes,” Dipper admitted, consoling Mabel and calming her down—she wasn’t truly angry, so much as she didn’t understand the reasoning behind their reservation. She had never before seen the inside the machinations of the adults as they conspired to force Sam and Pacifica together, and the Pines out of the picture. “But I didn’t do that on the eve of a giant party. And I certainly didn’t do it when the Southeasts and Northwests were going to be together—even though I didn’t know the Southeasts existed at the time.”

“I know it stings, Mabel,” Pacifica soothed her, reaching out and placing her hand on the brunette’s shoulder. “But, just until we get back to Gravity Falls, it’s probably best to keep you and Sam a secret. Our parents freaked out when Dipper and I got together—I don’t want to think about what they’d do if they realized that they were losing both Sam and I to the Pines.”

“Well, I can see how that would sting,” Mabel sniffled, though she smiled through the emotional blow. “Just think, Dipper,” she continued, turning towards her brother as she began to cheer back up. “The brother and sister from Piedmont manage to simultaneously defraud two of the richest families in the country by wooing away their heirs. What a legacy!”

Sam, Pacifica, and Dipper all burst out into laughter at Mabel’s conspiracy. Mabel joined in a moment later, good faith restored amongst them all. Keeping things a secret during the party tonight would be difficult, but it could be done—there would be plenty of opportunities to sneak away for privacy later on. Besides, Mabel still had much to learn about how to properly conduct herself when dealing with the Southeasts, and their volatile combination of short tempers and high expectations.

“Good,” Pacifica smiled as they all approached the back door of the Estate. Sam held open the door and allowed Pacifica and Mabel to enter, though Dipper slowed down and stopped on the concrete outside. “Sam, you and I will stick together tonight, just like old times. We’ll let the Pines be charming on their own, while keeping a low profile. I think our parents will like that better.” She then turned around and saw Dipper standing outside. She cocked her head in confusion, beckoning Dipper to follow her.

“Actually, I want to talk to Sam out here for a second, if that’s okay,” Dipper announced, setting Pacifica’s suitcase down and placing his duffel bag on top of it. “I’ll bring your bag up once we’re done.” A look of panic crossed Sam’s face as he looked at Pacifica for salvation—the blonde girl simply shrugged in confusion. Whatever Dipper was going to say, she wasn’t meant to be privy to it, and she had enough faith that he wouldn’t do anything too crass.

“Come on Mabel,” Pacifica whispered, guiding the brunette towards the staircase and back up to their rooms. Mabel hadn’t heard what Dipper had said, and wasn’t rushing to Sam’s defense. “This time, let me help you with your makeup, and I promise that you’re going to look _phenomenal_ tonight.” As the girls receded deeper into the house, Sam let go of the door and let it swing shut with a bang.

He swallowed as he turned to look at Dipper, who stood next to the luggage with his arms crossed. Sam watched as Dipper unzipped his duffel bag and pulled out his seaforged knife, his souvenir from Pescadorado. Dipper examined the shining blade, and then tucked it back into its sheath before zipping it away.

“Look, Sam,” Dipper began, staring directly into the blonde boy’s eyes. “When we were in Charleston, looking over the harbor, you told me that if I ever hurt Pacifica, you’d hurt me. I hope you realize that the same now applies for you and Mabel.”

Sam swallowed again, starting to nod in agreement before Dipper stepped up to him and continued to speak.

“Because Mabel isn’t just _like_ a sister to me. She _is_ my sister, and we’ve saved each other’s lives countless times. And I know that I’m more than capable of doing it again—whatever pain you could bring down on me for Pacifica, I could deal back tenfold.” Sam looked down at Dipper’s arms, marked with the scars of battles fought and battles won. Sam knew that he was more physically toned, but Dipper’s strength was rough and practical, built over years of experience. Even now, Dipper was standing with his legs and feet slightly splayed out for balance. Sam, by comparison, had his feet close together, easily able to be tipped over.

Sam once again began to nod, only to find himself stopped as Dipper raised a finger into the air.

“One more thing,” Dipper whispered. “If you ever do hurt Mabel, Mermando made me promise that, after I was through with you, I would throw you into the ocean. So you’d have to deal with him next. I don’t know if you saw how he shredded the tentacles of the core, but I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of that trident.”

Sam took a deep breath—if he was in Dipper’s shoes, he would feel the exact same way. About Pacifica, he did feel the exact same way. By their love for Pacifica and Mabel, Dipper and Sam found themselves in a bond of mutual accountability. They would hold themselves to a higher standard, and let the other enforce it. Together, they could grow to be better people and better boyfriends than they ever could on their own, all while keeping those they cared for safe.

“You know what, Dipper?” Sam finally responded, extending his hand. “Deal.”

A smile spread across Dipper’s face as he took Sam’s hand and shook it. Together, the two boys turned and looked out over both the ocean and the preparations for the party. The rich scent of barbecue and the shouts of the staff filled the air—the few hours that remained until nightfall were all that separated them from a new and fascinating future.


	33. Fireworks

The sounds of the party behind the twins echoed around the large dining hall before bouncing out into the night. Dipper and Mabel stood outside, leaning on a railing over the back patio as they looked out at the backyard. In the hours since they had arrived, the party planners had been busy—strands of spherical lights were now hung from the branches of every tree, casting a soft and flickering light over the scene.

Mabel was barefoot, with her high heels sitting on the boards next to her. She wore the same dress she and Pacifica had purchased in Charleston—a sleeveless gray bodice, coupled with a knee-length skirt made of panels of burgundy and cream fabric. A thick pink belt with a golden buckle was wrapped around her waist. Her hair had been meticulously styled into a complex, interlacing braid that hung tightly at the nape of her neck. Her makeup, done with Pacifica’s help, was soft and understated, though her purple eyeshadow provided a potent splash of color. Her lipstick, similarly, was a gentle and yielding red.

Dipper’s wardrobe was much more understated, wearing a pair of navy dress pants and a button-up shirt that hid the tiniest bit of pink. It had not been his first selection of attire for the evening, but Pacifica had insisted. Luckily, he hadn’t been forced to wear a tie or a jacket—combined with the more relaxed atmosphere of the Fourth of July Party and the fact that they were still regarded as underclass kids by the older adults, he was able to get away with less formal attire. He hadn’t even bothered trying to control his hair.

The twins stood side by side, leaning over the railing and savoring the sound of the insects in the trees, drowning out the cacophony of the festivities behind them. The tables in the backyard were still empty, not yet populated by the rich and powerful people inside.

The afternoon before the party had been quiet and calm as the teenagers retreated up to their rooms, allowing the staff full reign of the lower floors as they prepared for the party. Pacifica and Mabel had spent hours in their room getting ready, and Sam had been busy making sure the party preparations were going properly. At one point, Dipper had heard him talking aggressively on the phone, promising double the usual rate for some unknown service.

Stephen, Sophia, and Simon Southeast had arrived back from the airport around two o’clock, and Sam had gone out to greet them. From that moment on, he had been completely swallowed by checking up on Simon, promising his parents that everything was on schedule for the party, and spinning an expert lie about what he, Dipper, Pacifica, and Mabel had been up to over the past week.

From that point on, Dipper had been left to his own devices. Before Pacifica had gone to help Mabel, she had gone through his luggage and laid out his clothes for the evening. Dipper was more than capable of dressing himself, but when it came to matching coordinated colors, he was hopeless. And, since it wouldn’t take him more than twenty minutes to get ready, he had plenty of time to kill.

Until the party began, Dipper had chosen to spend most of his time filling in his journal with all of the information he could remember from their adventures underwater, including entries on the core, vampires, El Pescadorado, sunspears, the modified exorcism incantation, the teleportation engine, and the merfolk themselves. The prospect of water damage had kept Dipper from documenting these things as they were happening—but, there hadn’t been much spare time beneath the waves anyway.

Now, however, Dipper acutely felt the loss of his Weslee. It had been invaluable during the battle against the embryonic demon because it provided a homing beacon that the instruments aboard the _Stan o’ War II_ could pick up on and teleport to. Still, all of Dipper’s notes had been kept on the device. They had all automatically been backed up to the servers in Ford’s lab back in Gravity Falls, but Dipper had no way to access them at the moment. He didn’t even have a regular phone.

Even without being able to read his notes, however, Dipper had managed to fill a dozen pages of the journal before the time had come to prepare for the party, and he hadn’t even written down half of the things that he remembered. Once guests began to arrive, however, he knew that he would be needed downstairs.

Exiting his room, he had run into Sam, Mabel, and Pacifica all on their way down the stairs. Together, they retired to the parlor on the right side of the front door and waited, simply greeting people and making small talk as more guests appeared. It was agonizing for everyone, but they snuck in enough sarcastic comments and jokes with each other to make the experience bearable.

As per the plan they had concocted on their way up to the estate, Dipper and Mabel had stood next to each other, while Sam and Pacifica did the same on the other side of the room. By now, the teenagers were all comfortable enough with each other that the arrangement simply felt like another way to stand—but, it clearly made Sam and Pacifica’s parents happy.

When Preston and Priscilla had arrived, both of them wearing full formal attire, they had been unable to conceal both their disdain for the Pines and their fondness for seeing Sam and Pacifica next to each other. They lavished the blonde couple with praise and admiration, while not even stopping to speak to the brunettes. At most, Dipper and Preston exchanged a terse nod.

In the aftermath of the Christmas Party, both the Northwests and Southeasts had thought that victory was assured, and that their nefarious efforts to split up Dipper and Pacifica had been successful. However, over the course of the summer, it had become obvious that their relationship was stronger than ever. Though the Northwests may have disliked it, they appeared to have backed off for the time being. The Southeasts, who lived on the other side of the country, hadn’t yet had an opportunity to intervene.

Still, Pacifica’s proposal that Mabel and Sam’s blossoming affection for each other be kept secret had been a good call. Preston and Stephen’s anger, barely restrained as it was, would have exploded if they found out, creating both a dangerous situation for the teenagers and a public relations nightmare for all of the other business contacts who were attending the party.

After shaking Sam’s hand, the Northwests had turned and walked between the double-staircases, heading deeper into the building to where Stephen and Sophia were greeting guests beneath the rose window in the main dining hall. As soon as they had vanished from sight, Dipper had stepped across the parlor and lightly kissed Pacifica’s cheek, unable to resist the prospect of mocking her parents behind their backs—at the same time, he was smart enough to kiss his girlfriend’s cheek to avoid smudging her lipstick. Pacifica, thrilled and impressed by Dipper’s stubborn defiance, let his lips linger a moment longer before pushing him back across the room, just in case her parents happened to turn around.

The teenagers had made it their policy to avoid both the Northwests and the Southeasts as much as they possibly could over the course of the evening. The risk of letting something slip and making them angry was ever present, and frankly, they just weren’t very interested in what their parents had to say. They were far more invested in what they were saying to each other, and spending time together.

The arrangement had persisted throughout dinner, when the Northeasts and Southwests had gathered in the dining room. Sam and Pacifica had sat with their families at the head of the table, while Dipper and Mabel had been relegated to the kids section at the far end. In between the two sides were at least ten other couples, business associates of the Southeasts who had been invited to the festivities.

Dipper and Mabel, for their part, hadn’t minded for one moment sitting in the kids section. Many of the children were around ten or eleven years old, closer to Simon’s age than theirs. Still, the children provided happiness and levity amongst the dour conversations of the adults.

It also provided an opportunity for Dipper to make sure that Simon had made it through the past week at military school okay. He never asked the question directly, since he didn’t want to bring it up if the bright-eyed Simon would rather have kept it private, but he was able to read the younger boy’s body language—he appeared unharmed. Simon hadn’t even been given a buzz cut, and was bouncily rambling with the other boys about all of the important things—mostly Minecraft and how icky girls were. The girls, sitting in their own group, diligently ignored them.

Despite the supposed casual nature of the party, the food that was served was easily as expensive and fancy as that served by the Northwests. The barbecue in the smoker out back, which had smelled so vibrant, tart, and bitingly delicious, had been meticulously arranged onto brioche buns, with perfectly portioned cups of mustard, ketchup, pickles, and coleslaw so that the guests could decorate their sandwiches how they saw fit.

As Dipper bit into his sandwich and discovered that it was exactly as flavorful as he had hoped, he couldn’t help but shake his head at the incongruity. The food was being served on gold-accented china, and the beverages were being served in polished glass tumblers. Tall, long-stemmed wineglasses filled with deep red liquid sat next to every plate. Pacifica was the only exception, who had opted for her traditional flute of champagne instead. Dipper shook his head again—he personally couldn’t imagine what champagne would taste like with barbecue. He was much happier enjoying the ice cold Coke that had been served to him and Mabel, along with the other children.

It was obvious that the seating arrangement had been designed to humiliate the twins, and separate them from their wealthier friends. It didn’t faze either of them—after the ordeal that they had been through together, it would take more than a few additional plates of barbecue to separate them. The teenagers all bided their time together, engaging in polite conversation until they had a chance to slip away.

After finishing their sandwiches, dessert had been brought out on trays. Small silver spoons poked out of stemmed dessert glasses, which were filled with layers of sweet banana pudding, light and fluffy whipped cream, sliced bananas, and soft vanilla wafers. Dipper and Mabel ate slowly, savoring every sugary bite as they realized how much they had missed normal food while they were underwater—meat roasted over a flame, soft bread, and inexpensive fruit were all impossibilities in Pescadorado. Every burst of flavor that rushed across their tongues they savored that much more.

Soon, the sun began to set outside in earnest, and Stephen Southeast, sitting at the head of the table, suggested that the guests retire outside for the fireworks display. Many of the attendees, however, satiated by barbecue and wine, were in no hurry to move. Stephen, for his part, wasn’t either—the fireworks wouldn’t be exploding until he called the boat and told them to launch. He was more than content to stay inside and continue gossiping.

However, the kids at the end of the table took it as their opportunity to flee from the stuffy dining hall and go off to play on their own, either inside or outside. Dipper and Mabel, who were sitting in the kids section, followed the lead of the others and silently slunk out of the room.

As they left, vanishing through the side door into the dusty living room, Dipper had subtly waved at Pacifica to get her attention. She shot him a withering glare, though the taut, artificial smile never left her face—she and Sam were surrounded by the adults, and it was going to take them longer to organize an escape plan. Dipper and Mabel gleefully left their well-off friends to their own devices, breathing more easily as they made their way to the front door and finally exited the Estate.

Together, side by side, they walked around the rear of the building, finally finding themselves on the back patio outside of the kitchen. The waitstaff were hurrying around busily, even though desert had already been served. For the most part, they were starting to clean dishes and making sure that the wineglasses were being filled without a moments delay—however, two men in black vests were struggling to move a giant block of ice to the outdoor bar, where it would be chipped fresh to make cocktails.

The twins slid to the side of the patio, doing their best to keep out of the way of the diligent workers—they knew how much they were putting up with from the Southeasts and Northwests alone, and weren’t looking to make their jobs any more difficult than they had to be. If they leaned forward, they could just barely look up and see the glistening rose window. Though the patio continued on to the other side of the house, they carefully stayed out of the line of sight of the adults still dining inside.

Together, they stared out at the ocean as stars began to populate the sky. It was odd to see the sky over the ocean simply fade from blue to gray to black as the sun set—in California, the sun set into the water, lighting the air above it into a fiery blaze of oranges, reds, and pinks. The East Coast was much calmer, in that regard—the sun rose bright, cool, and ferocious, but the only obvious sign of the encroaching night were the chirping insects and cicadas. Out beyond the breakers, the yacht loaded with fireworks sat at anchor, awaiting the order from Stephen to unleash its colorful payload into the sky.

Dipper glanced to his right and looked at Mabel, who was leaning on her elbows looking out at the calm, constantly waving ocean and beautifully decorated backyard. It wasn’t nearly as isolated as the walkway out in the marsh had been, but they didn’t have time to venture back there for a conversation—if Sam and Pacifica managed to escape, they wanted to be ready to meet up as soon as possible.

Mabel gave a heavy sigh, smiling contentedly at the scene before them. However, Dipper could see hints of worry in her eyes. After all the struggle that they had been through, he wasn’t about to leave any stone unturned. Any uncertainties that Mabel still had about where things stood should be resolved now, while Sam was available for easy conversation.

“Come on,” Dipper probed gently, tucking his hands into his pockets and bumping into his sister with his shoulder. “I can tell that you’re thinking about something.”

“That’s because I’m always thinking about something,” Mabel smirked, before the smile slowly faded from her face. “I’m just like you—I just do a better job of not freaking out about the things I’m thinking.”

“That’s because you think about unicorns and art and pigs,” Dipper laughed lightly. “But I know your daydreaming and artistic faces, and your expression right now is neither one. So what’s really bothering you?”

“Nothing is bothering me,” Mabel responded with a shrug. After Dipper gave her a knowing look, she squirmed and backtracked. “Or… nothing is a problem. It’s better to put it like that. I feel better than I have since we left on this vacation, honestly… I just don’t know where things go from here.”

“We go back home in a few days,” Dipper answered sarcastically. “But I have a hunch that’s not what you’re talking about.”

“It kind of is, though!” Mabel fired back, grabbing onto the patio railing and swinging backwards, squatting down before pulling herself back up. “Because once we leave here and go back to Gravity Falls, what happens to me and Sam?”

“It sounds like you’re in the same position Pacifica and I were in when we started dating last year,” Dipper acknowledged, reaching up to rub the barest bit of stubble that was forming on his chin. “We had no idea what to do either—as boyfriend and girlfriend, or what being in a long distance relationship meant. But we figured it out together. And you helped a lot with that, you know—you talked with Pacifica when we stayed at the inn in Seattle, and you’ve always been there to keep me grounded.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the same as me and Sam,” Mabel rolled her eyes. “You two immediately wanted to get gross. I know that I’m not ready for that yet, so it’s not even a concern. But the distance you and Pacifica felt is nothing like the kind between Sam and I—because you two had years of friendship before you worked up the courage to get together, and because you could still drive up to see her. Driving from Piedmont to Gravity Falls is a long drive, but its doable. From Piedmont to Charleston? Impossible.”

“I think that you’re forgetting a tiny little detail here,” Dipper smiled, lightly flicking the back of Mabel’s head. Because of her tightly bound braid, she didn’t even feel it.

“And what might that be?” Mabel asked, slumping over on the railing. “Because if you think I’m forgetting that cell phones exist, I promise I’ve thought of that. It’s not the same.”

“Not quite,” Dipper chuckled, laying his head down on the railing and making eye contact with his sister. “Sam’s starting college at Stanford in two months.”

Instantly, Mabel shot up, her back stiff as a board. Her fingers gripped the wooden railings so tightly that her knuckles turned white as she considered the implications of that fact. Dipper smiled, convinced that if Mabel’s hair hadn’t been tied down, it would have shot out in every direction at once, as though she had been struck by lightning.

“Oh,” Mabel swallowed. Having Sam be a mere hour’s drive away changed things dramatically. “I suppose I did forget that.” Suddenly, a whole new world of possibilities had opened up—many of which Mabel was scared of, but some which she wasn’t.

“You ought to talk to your boyfriend more,” Dipper laughed, rocking back on his heels. “You might learn some useful information.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Mabel blushed, crossing her arms and rubbing her skin vigorously, as though to make sure her blood was still flowing. “At least, not technically. All he’s asked me to do is watch fireworks. And we’ve held hands some.”

“And he saved you from getting possessed by an underwater, eldritch mind demon,” Dipper pointed out. “For someone who hadn’t even held your hand at the time, I think that says a lot about how he feels about you.”

“Yeah, well… just keep your nose out of our business,” Mabel replied, blushing even more ferociously. “If I’ve got something I want to talk about, I’ll tell Pacifica.”

“And Pacifica will tell me,” Dipper laughed. “I get not wanting to talk about some things—believe me, I get it. But I am here for you, Mabel.”

“You always have been,” Mabel acknowledged, gazing up at the sky. While they had been talking, more stars had started to peek through the fading light as the clouds disappeared from the sky, leaving them with a clear view of the night sky. The stars weren’t as vibrant as they were in Gravity Falls, but they were still far brighter than California.

“And I always will be,” Dipper confirmed. “I’m bound by law and blood.”

“And also because you love me,” Mabel laughed as she released her grip on the railing and turned towards her brother, extending her arms. “Awkward sibling hug?”

Dipper rolled his eyes as he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his sister. As fond of hugging as Mabel was, it usually wasn’t her who proposed an awkward sibling hug—usually, she just hugged people. It was Dipper who felt that he needed to make the implicit explicit and ask permission.

“Pat, pat,” the two of them said in unison, earning odd looks from the kitchen staff who were constantly streaming in and out of the Estate. Dipper loosened his grip, ready to drop his arms and step away when Mabel squeezed him even more tightly.

Mabel started to bang out a drum solo on his back, patting him excitedly and ferociously as she bit her lip and smiled, closing her eyes in happiness.

“What’s that about?” Dipper asked, his voice shaking wildly as he spoke.

“Oh, sorry,” Mabel apologized, letting go of her brother and stepping back. “Got a little carried away there. I’m just excited.” Her eyes gleamed with anticipation, wondering what the future held for her.

“Excited for what?” Pacifica asked as she walked towards the twins from the other side of the patio, with Sam following close behind her. After a few more painful minutes trapped in conversation with their parents and the other adults, they had made a successful getaway. Instantly, Dipper and Mabel’s eyes shot towards their partners, but instead automatically focused on the flashing vehicle that was parked in the driveway behind them.

The large van had been painted pink, with a spiraling mural of rainbows and flowers running down the side. The young kids of around Simon’s age were all clambering around the window in the side of the vehicle, where a disinterested teenage employee was helping them. However, even a coldhearted teen couldn’t help but be caught up in their genuine excitement. Over the cicadas, the constant tune of the ice cream truck was barely able to drift to their ears.

“Excited for ice cream, apparently!” Mabel beamed with excitement as Sam and Pacifica approached, each of them holding two small cups of ice cream. Despite the exquisite banana pudding that had been served after the barbecue, not unlike the cranachan from the Christmas party, the ice cream was a much more tempting prospect. “You hired an ice cream truck?”

Sam shrugged guiltily as he almost dropped one of the cups, before quickly recovering. He wore khaki pants and a white shirt similar to Dipper’s, though tinged with blue instead of pink. As always, the top two buttons were undone to expose a t-shirt beneath, and a coiled band of woven leather was wrapped around his wrist. His hair had been tamped down by water at the beginning of the party, but had since exploded outwards.

“Sam hired an ice cream truck,” Pacifica remarked slyly. “And apparently he didn’t tell his parents about it. They don’t seem too happy.” She spoke comfortably, glad to finally be back with her friends and away from the stuffy dinner party inside. In a few minutes, the fanciness of the party inside would pour out into the night—but for now, the time was theirs.

“No, but I really wanted some ice cream,” Sam replied with a smile of his own as he passed a cup to Mabel. “Besides, I think Simon and his friends are enjoying it.” He looked back at the truck sitting in the driveway, and saw his younger brother and the other kids at the party clustered around the vehicle, ready to spend their parents’ money.

Sam had spoken to Simon in private once he had returned from the airport, and could easily confirm Dipper’s suspicions—Simon had returned from his brief stint at military school as bright and bubbly as ever. Sam’s call to his friend Hugh had worked wonders—Simon had been assigned to Hugh’s company, where he had spent the week surrounded by older, hardened boys ready for a military career. It was intimidating at first, but he had quickly adapted to the environment of the school.

Whenever the adult officers were around, Simon had been forced to stand and march in formation with the others. However, Hugh’s position had allowed him a lot of freedom, and Simon had spent much of his time having tremendous fun with the older boys, who all treated him like their little brother. At the end of the week, he had acted extremely sad and regretful, and Stephen and Sophia had been satisfied—as far as they were concerned, their son’s burgeoning smoking habit had been squashed.

“This is fancy ice cream!” Mabel remarked as she dug into it with a small bamboo spoon. “What flavor is it?”

“Of course it’s fancy,” Sam grinned in response. “I wasn’t just going to get one of those rinky-dink operations that just serves prepackaged stuff. This is all homemade, based out of a shop in Charleston. I think the ice cream you have is mocha based, with ribbons of soft peanut butter and cookie crumbs.”

“What about mine?” Dipper asked Pacifica as his girlfriend handed him his ice cream. Mabel slid the spoon into her mouth, and her eyes rolled back into her head in astonishment at the flavor, and gratitude for the coffee.

Pacifica walked over to Dipper’s left, leaning against the railing. Unlike Mabel, she was wearing a different dress than she had during the initial dinner with the Southeasts.

The dress had a plunging V-neck, and was made up of multiple layers of soft, slightly transparent pale blue chiffon. The skirt hung around her knees, and the loose shoulders of the dress hung over her short frame almost like a cape. She wore a silver necklace and earrings, along with white heels that clicked sharply when she walked, even against the treated wooden boards of the patio. Her hair rolled in a voluminous blonde wave down her back—the damage that had been dealt by Hudson was completely unnoticeable. Her makeup was just even more understated than Mabel’s, and her lipstick was slightly lighter.

“Yours is a vanilla cream, because you’re boring,” Pacifica accused as she leaned her head on Dipper’s shoulder. “But, it’s also got graham cracker pie crust and a blueberry swirl. Hopefully that’s okay.”

“It sounds delicious,” Dipper praised, peering into the cup and admiring the rich currents of indigo flavor that ran throughout the dessert. “I don’t mind having other things in the ice cream, I just think that plain vanilla is the best background for those flavors to play off of. What about yours?

“Mine is… interesting,” Pacifica began uncertainly as she looked at the pale brown ice cream. Visually, it wasn’t nearly as appealing as that of the twins. “It’s brown sugar ice cream, with toasted cinnamon oats mixed into it, along with a peanut butter swirl and chocolate chips, and—hey!”

Pacifica watched incredulously as Dipper quickly licked the ice cream off of his bamboo spoon and plunged it into her cup, stealing a bite of her dessert and taking it for himself. Her mouth was agape as he admired the unusual, but complex and delicious notes of her selection.

“What makes you think that you can just steal that?” Pacifica berated him, lightly whacking the back of his hand with her own spoon, and causing Dipper to laugh.

"I change my mind,” Dipper declared proudly. “Vanilla is the best base for sure, but that flavor is really good.” Pacifica, with a hand on her hips, was unimpressed. “Look,” Dipper continued apologetically. “If it will make you feel better, you can have some of mine.” He offered Pacifica a spoonful of his own, amazing looking cup.

“No thanks,” Pacifica replied, rolling her eyes. “I’ll stick with mine. I’ll just eat around where you touched, because I don’t want your germs.”

“Like you two haven’t swapped enough germs already,” Mabel remarked snidely, already halfway through her cup. Sam, who had been silently enjoying his cheesecake flavored ice cream, studded through with fresh strawberries and a chocolate ripple, snorted with laughter.

“Keep your thoughts to yourself,” Pacifica warned Mabel, leaning forward to look past the blushing Dipper. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t have been kissing if you had had the opportunity.”

“Not with Dipper,” Mabel shrugged. Sam, on the other side of Mabel, joined Dipper in blushing. “Even if we weren’t related. I’m sorry, Pacifica, but one day you’re going to have to realize that he’s just not that attractive.”

“We have the same face, dummy,” Dipper replied, rolling his eyes and lightly kicking his sister. “All you’ve got are eyelashes and those fat cheeks.” Even though Mabel had grown much taller and slimmer over the past three years, some things hadn’t changed.

“My fat cheeks are adorable!” Mabel defended adamantly—the gentle teasing was all in good fun, and everyone there knew it. The sibling bickering Dipper and Mabel had always shared merged with the same dynamic shared by Sam and Pacifica to create an environment of sharp remarks and witty retorts, always joking. If anything ever went too far, they all knew to stop immediately. “Just like Waddles’s!”

“At least we agree that you and Waddles look similar,” Pacifica smirked. Mabel’s brow furrowed in confusion, unsure of whether to be complimented and insulted.

“Well, if it means anything,” Sam interjected, addressing Mabel. “I think that both you and Waddles look fantastic. For different reasons.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Mabel praised, reaching up and tousling his hair. Sam was surprised, but enjoyed the feeling of her nails dancing across his scalp. “At least I know someone here has my back.”

“Oh, we’ve always got your back, Mabel,” Pacifica replied, affirming their friendship. “Sometimes it’s just fun to stab you in it.”

“Et tu, Northwest?” Sam fired back, earning an eye roll from the blonde girl.

“Why am I friends with you people?” sighed Dipper, shaking his head with a smile as he continued to eat his ice cream.

“Because you’re stuck with me,” Mabel replied, scraping the bottom of her ice cream cup with her spoon. As she spoke, her phone buzzed in Dipper’s pocket—since Mabel’s dress didn’t have a convenient place for storage, she had asked her brother to hold onto it. Mabel dropped the empty cup to the railing with a clatter as Dipper fished her phone out and handed it to her.

“And because you like me,” Pacifica offered, leaning her head back onto his shoulder as she slowly pulled the ice cream spoon from her mouth. The texture of the bamboo was coarse, but the flavor of the brown sugar ice cream was surprisingly rich, while the toasted oats and peanut butter added the perfect hit of savor.

“I’m just here because of those two,” Sam grinned. “Personally, I don’t know how you can stand me.”

Suddenly, Mabel stepped back from the railing and gave an ecstatic shriek, hopping up and down and bouncing from foot to foot as she spun around, clutching the phone to her chest. Sam recoiled in shock, a worried expression on his face at Mabel’s outburst. Pacifica and Dipper, more used to it, turned to face her slowly.

“What is it?” Dipper asked practically, prompting Mabel to hold her phone out for him to look it. However, she was still bouncing around happily, squealing in joy, and jolting the screen around so that it was impossible for Dipper to see anything. Shaking his head, he reached out and grabbed his sister’s wrist, holding the phone in place as Pacifica stood on her tiptoes and peered over her boyfriend’s shoulder.

The alert had been a text from Stan, sending a picture. Since Dipper’s Weslee had been lost beneath the waves, Mabel’s phone had been the only one to receive it.

The image showed Stan holding a small bundle of pink polka-dotted fabric in his arms, and a small, wrinkled face with the barest wispy beginnings of dark hair on its head poking through. At the side of the frame, Melody sat in a hospital bed beneath a white blanket, an exhausted and sweaty smile on her face as she held Abuelita’s hand. Ford, meanwhile, sat in the background patting Soos’s back, who was sobbing uncontrollably.

“Say hello to Naomi Julia Ramirez,” Pacifica read, wrapping her arms around Dipper’s chest and squeezing him tightly. “Melody finally popped—and wow, nine pounds exactly. She’s a chonker.”

“I would have called her a stinker, personally,” Dipper laughed, handing Mabel’s phone to Sam so he could take a look. “That seems a bit more appropriate for a baby, but your meme knowledge is always impressive.” Out of habit, he grabbed Pacifica’s hand and pulled it up to his lips for a kiss.

“What!?” Mabel exclaimed, distraught as she grabbed the phone from Sam, who surrendered it immediately. “Naomi? They didn’t go with Gladys?”

“If it makes you feel better, Mabel, I wouldn’t have chosen Gladys either,” Pacifica consoled her. “It’s a good name, but just calling a baby Gladys feels… weird.”

“Yeah,” Dipper echoed, returning Pacifica’s hand to his chest, gently rubbing her fingers as he did so. “I don’t want to feel like my kids are older than me.”

Suddenly, both Dipper and Pacifica became very aware of how close they were standing to each other, and how comfortable they truly were together to be holding each other like they were in front of not just Mabel and Sam, but the kitchen staff as well—and they were discussing baby names, however peripherally.

They had only been dating a year, but they had both spend many nights, both alone and together, imagining how things might play out in the future if they continued dating. They had never spoken of it, but they had both decided that the idea of being parents together was not entirely disgusting—a critical threshold to overcome if a relationship was to be successful. You didn’t just have be willing to have a child with a person—you had to be proud of them, and happy to commit to such a monumental undertaking.

When Dipper and Pacifica had discussed baby names the previous Christmas, when Soos and Melody had first announced their pregnancy, the conversation had felt abstract and impersonal. But now that there was an actual face to put to the name, however wrinkly, soft, and squishy, everything suddenly felt much more intimate and real.

“B-besides,” Dipper stammered, swallowing and trying to control the blood rushing only and entirely to his head as Pacifica quickly removed her hands from around him and stared out towards the marsh. Now was neither the time nor the place for such thoughts, conversations, or planning. “Naomi is a good name all around for them. It’s ornate, pretty, it sounds good, and it’s just Japanese enough to cover Soos’s anime obsession.”

“I… guess it is a pretty name,” Mabel sighed in defeat. Her frown didn’t last long, however, as her affection for the baby she hadn’t even met soon overwhelmed her disappointment over the name. “Besides,” she continued, locking her phone and tucking it back into Dipper’s pocket as she cheered herself up, “there’s always hope for Tyrone on round two!”

“I would let round one get potty trained first,” Pacifica commented, laughing uncomfortably as she did so, and glancing at Dipper to confirm that he too was feeling awkward. Something about seeing Naomi, the casually comfortable way in which Pacifica had been holding Dipper, and how lovingly Dipper had reacted, had combined to stir up something inside of them that they had no idea what to do with.

Before Mabel was able to respond, however, they suddenly heard Stephen and Preston’s laughter from the other end of the patio, and their blood ran cold. The door on the other end of the large dining hall opened, and the artificial glow from inside poured out into the darkening night. By now, the sun had completely set, and the midnight blue sky was the perfect backdrop for the luminous, colorful explosions of the fireworks.

Quickly, the four teenagers stepped back from where they were leaning against the railing to hide against the outside wall of the dining room. Mabel ducked down and grabbed her high heels, dragging them out of sight and holding them loosely.

Slowly, the noise from the inside of the Estate made its way outside as the other businesspeople and their families emerged for the fireworks show. Some of them immediately headed for the flickering ice cream truck, and some headed for the bar. Most of them, however, went for the wicker chairs, hoping to claim a good table to enjoy the fireworks display from.

“It looks like they’re about to get started,” Dipper whispered to the group as they sheltered in place. “Sam, do you have a place where we can all go to watch the show, or do we need to split up again?”

“Well, I had a somewhat different plan,” Sam murmured as he extended his hand to Mabel, who took it graciously as her heart thrilled within her chest. “I thought that we could split up in… slightly different pairings.”

“Oh!” Dipper exclaimed as he got Sam’s message. “Are you sure that’s safe? Do we have places to hide?”

“ _I_ have a place to hide,” Sam responded, pointing at himself. “Or, not hide, but… a place to watch the show from privately. What about you, Pacifica?”

“I imagine I can find a place,” the blonde whispered into Dipper’s ear as she thought of all the places around the Estate where she had played hide and seek with Sam as a child. “We won’t have the comfort of soft wicker chairs, but after being underwater for three days, being able to breath air is luxurious enough.”

“Good,” Sam smiled, pleased that everything was going according to plan. Avoiding their parents for the rest of the evening would be simple, as the Northwests and Southeasts would be overwhelmingly occupied by both the fireworks and their wineglasses.

“Just remember what we talked about, Sam,” Dipper declared sternly, eyeing the blonde boy carefully. Sam responded with a subtle nod—amidst all of his family’s contorted and distorted lessons about what being a good person was, the notion of being a gentleman had sunk in thoroughly, even if he had to look outside of his family to find good role models.

“Come on,” Sam whispered, squeezing Mabel’s hand. “Let’s get going. The place I have picked out isn’t the fanciest in the world, but it will let us watch the fireworks safely. Besides, I think things have been fancy enough here tonight.”

“Ooh, are we going to go see Cornbread?!” Mabel exclaimed excitedly, hoping desperately to hold the American shepherd and smother her in pets while they watched fireworks. The kennels on the southern part of the Estate would have been good place to take in the show.

“Not quite,” Sam laughed as he subtly began to pull her away from the gathering crowd of adults. “She’s scared of fireworks, but not much else.” Pacifica rolled her eyes at Sam’s boldness as the couple vanished around the corner of the Estate. By that point, Mabel’s entire face was beet red, even beneath her makeup, and her pulse pounded visibly in her temples. Her disappointment at not yet seeing Cornbread had been completely overwhelmed by the possibilities of what lay ahead.

“Come on,” Pacifica gestured, extending her hand for Dipper to take. “We should probably get out of here too, before they spot us.”

“I’ll kill him if I have to,” Dipper commented, shaking his head as he let Pacifica pull him along. Pacifica rolled her eyes as she guided her boyfriend down the stairs to the soft grass of the backyard.

There, she briefly paused to take off her white high heels, thrusting them into Dipper’s hands as she quickly ran across the backyard. Dipper followed her gladly, her light blue chiffon dress flapping in the ocean breeze as she led the way to their hiding place, guided by the emerging flicker of fireflies.

They hugged the left side of the backyard, jogging along the line where the manicured foliage of the backyard met the wild trees of the marsh. Dipper was certain that they were going to turn left once they reached the walkway, and run to the gazebo where he had talked with Mabel the night they arrived, but Pacifica kept moving forward towards the ocean.

Slowly, the immaculate, short-cropped grass gave way to soft white sand as Pacifica charged up the dunes and emerged onto the beach. Dipper stopped before stepping onto the sand, pausing to take off his own shoes and socks. As much as he wanted to chase after Pacifica immediately, he knew that he would never get the sand out of the shoes if so much as set foot onto the beach wearing them.

The sand squished between his toes, almost like liquid, as Dipper walked onto the beach and turned to look at Pacifica. Almost immediately, he froze.

Pacifica stood on top of the dunes, her pale white legs shining in the moonlight as both her dress and her golden hair billowed in the breeze, the barely translucent fabric sculpting the curve of her hips against the stars. The slight amount of silver jewelry she was wearing sparkled, gleaming like the waves constantly cascading down onto the beach below them.

She looked down at Dipper, confused as to why he had stopped. By now, they were hidden by the trees of the marsh, so she wasn’t worried about being spotted by the guests emerging into the backyard, but it was odd that her boyfriend had paused.

“Something wrong?” Pacifica asked, cocking her head to the side curiously.

“No, no,” Dipper stammered, jolting himself back into motion as he walked up the dune to stand next to his girlfriend. “Everything is very right. You just looked absurdly gorgeous. I wasn’t expecting it, and it caught me off guard.”

“Always expect it,” Pacifica remarked snidely, though she was unable to conceal the blush in her cheeks. It always meant more when Dipper said she looked good, whether she was standing like a goddess on a moonlit beach or covered with the muck and mud of adventuring in the woods.

Quickly, she reached up and pecked a kiss onto his cheek before redirecting his attention downwards. She pointed at the base of a large, sprawling oak tree that sat at the very top of the dunes, thriving at the exact point where the dark and rich soil of the marsh met the shifting apricot sands.

“I think this is a pretty good place to watch the fireworks,” she offered, gesturing out to the ocean where the yacht sat at anchor. There was a flurry of activity on board, indicating that the first launch was about to take place.

“It seems fine to me,” Dipper nodded, reaching out and squeezing Pacifica’s hand as he patted the bark on the trunk. “I trust this tree.”

“I would be more concerned if you didn’t,” Pacifica laughed as Dipper sat down and leaned against the roots of the tree, grunting as he did so. She sat down next to him gingerly, not caring about the repercussions of placing the fine chiffon fabric of her dress against the sand and the soil.

The chirping cacophony of insects drowned out the sound of the party behind them, which was growing louder as most of the guests had emerged into the night for the fireworks display. The sprawling limbs of the oak tree overhead stretched out over the beach, and long strands of Spanish moss drifted in the wind. The niche in the roots where Dipper had chosen to sit, with his girlfriend beside him, was strangely comfortable, as though the spirits of the marsh were recognizing the work that they had done to grow together, and was rewarding them for it. 

Pacifica gently rested her head against Dipper’s shoulder, alone now for the first time since they had flown to Charleston. She relaxed into his body as his arm draped around her waist, exhaling loudly and savoring the scent of the air—the muted petrichor of the evening dew, the salt air blowing in off of the ocean, and the vibrant odors emerging from the inlet that fed the marsh. Even the unpleasant smells were an improvement over the fishiness inside the algae-powered masks.

Pacifica felt a smile instinctively appear as Dipper bowed his head and swept aside her hair, gently kissing her forehead. Even now that they were hidden from the views of anyone and everyone, he was still being calm and reserved. Pacifica was fed up with it.

Her eyes wide and flashing in the starlight, she popped up from her reclined position and brought her face close to his. Dipper’s gaze was briefly fearful at the movement, wondering if she had perhaps been bitten by a spider—however, the intent in her gaze was obvious.

Dipper relished the sensation as Pacifica pushed her lips desperately against his, breathing ragged and harsh as she savored the taste of his lips, still faintly salt-stained and reminiscent of barbecue and ice cream. She grabbed the collar of his shirt hungrily, pulling him up and against her body, unchangeable smiles on both of their faces. Holding him in place, Pacifica bent over and started to nibble at his neck, teasing his sensitive skin slightly with her teeth.

Dipper’s hands hovered uncertainly over her waist, trembling as he tried to decide whether or not to touch her. Pacifica, insistent and wanting, moved to swing one leg over his lap and straddle him as they continued to make out.

However, as she moved, Dipper delicately placed his palm on her thigh and pushed her back down into the seat next to him, pulling his lips away from hers. She looked at him, pouting at the denial.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Dipper began apologizing. “I really wanted to keep going, but I’m not exactly… comfortable doing all that stuff outside. Especially since there’s an entire party back there.” He pointed at the backyard as justification for his decision--however, the way his eyes flitted around suggested that something else was gnawing at him, the image of Naomi and the sensation of Pacifica’s tender hands against him beginning to take up permanent residence within his brain.

“They can’t see us,” Pacifica pointed out with a shrug. But, as Dipper looked around, uncertain as to whether he should tell his girlfriend what he really thought or keep it to himself to avoid conflict, an understanding smile spread across her lips, her pink lipstick now completely smeared. She did not know the full extent of Dipper’s worries, but she understood his anxieties about being in public—and if he wasn’t enjoying it, there was no point in doing it. “But I get what you’re saying. I’d much rather be in a bedroom too.”

“Oh, I fully agree with that,” Dipper agreed, now comfortably returning his arm to Pacifica’s waist and lifting her into a kiss—perhaps less aggressive, but no less passionate or meaningful. “There’s so much we have to make up for once we get back to Gravity Falls."

“I’m going to hold you to that, you know,” Pacifica smirked, kissing him again. She reached up and took ahold of his collar, this time readjusting it to make sure that it lay flat against his neck, and covered up the slight bruises she had inflicted.

“I hope so,” Dipper flirted, this time taking the initiative and kissing Pacifica’s neck. Laughing joyously, she laced her fingers in his hair and pulled him away—it was not quite as easy to conceal bruises against her pale, clean skin.

Suddenly, a sharp whistling sound echoed through the air as the first sparking, spiraling firework arced up from the boat before them. It soared high into the sky and finally burst, a single yellow pulse that fizzled out at the end with a sharp crackle and a series of smaller pops.

Even though it was only the first launch, and the fireworks would get far more intense going forward, an amazed gasp still rose up from the adults gathered at the tables in the backyard behind them.

Though Dipper and Pacifica were sheltered from their sight by a tree, and were relishing the chance to be together again, Dipper couldn’t help but turn around and peer back at the party while the display continued. There was the tiniest gap in the foliage that he could gaze through to see the Estate, though they could never have seen him.

Many of the guests had gathered around the circular tables in the backyard, reclining in the cushioned wicker chairs with wineglasses in their hands. However, a longer line of men were lingering at the bar, demanding harder drinks and forcing the bartender to work as quickly as he could. Dipper at least hoped that they were tipping well.

The scene was fancy and formal, and was illuminated gorgeously by the incandescent bulbs hanging from the trees and the flickering candles resting around flowers on the white tablecloths. It would have been beautiful, if they hadn’t known how harsh and oppressive such an environment could be.

Standing above everyone, on the portion of the patio that ran directly beneath the large rose window, were Stephen Southeast and Preston Northwest. Their wives stood by their sides, admiring both the spectacle of the fireworks and the view of the other businesspeople laid out beneath them. They were laughing boisterously and enjoying themselves tremendously.

Behind them, the lights within the dining hall flickered off, allowing the cascading fireworks to shine out even more vibrantly in the night sky. The bursts reflected off of the window’s glass, giving every explosion a luminous echo. The shadows of Stephen and Preston were simultaneously cast back against the walls of the Estate, and down onto the backyard and the people before them, looming over the future with their own plans and conspiracies.

But, for tonight, they had no idea where the teenagers were, and they would have to look incredibly hard to find them. For the duration of the fireworks display, at least, they were safe together. Dipper at least hoped that Sam and Mabel were secure, and weren’t off doing anything too stupid that would get them caught.

“I wonder where Sam and Mabel went off too,” Dipper absentmindedly mumbled to himself, only to feel Pacifica press tight against his chest as she leaned over him.

“I have an idea,” she responded, smiling as she pointed up towards the roof of the Southeast Estate. As she answered, she slid one small hand in between the buttons on Dipper’s shirt, enjoying the warmth and texture of his soft, scarred torso against her fingers. A smile spread across Dipper’s face at both Pacifica’s touch, and the sight before him.

A small service panel popped open among the shingles, and Sam clambered out, using his arms to stabilize himself as he stood up on the roof. Bending over, he reached down and pulled Mabel onto the roof with him. The brunette’s hair now cascaded freely down her back, and she had traded in her high heels for a more comfortable pair of sneakers, which she wore in her fancy dress over bare feet, with the laces untied.

Together, the couple navigated over to the lip of the roof and sat down, leaning up against a gable that housed a decorative window. Mabel tucked her legs up and underneath her as she leaned against Sam’s shoulder, the multicolored rainbow of fireworks reflecting off of their beaming faces, hands clasped tight.

Dipper and Pacifica both laughed at the scene. Sam and Mabel were alone on the roof, having risen above all of the problems and complexity that came from their own anxieties, and those imposed upon them by the worlds they came from. Just like Dipper and Pacifica, they had seen something in each other, and recognized that nothing could stand in the way of becoming better people together, if they wanted it.

Beneath them, reveling in the fireworks, were Preston and Stephen, completely unaware of the romantic scene playing out above them. If they had known, they would have been furious. But all their anger meant nothing for the night—they couldn’t touch either of the couples, holding the ones they cared for tightly.

Then, the sky went dark, only illuminated by the moon and the stars as the smoke above the yacht dissipated. After a moment, three massive shells launched into the air, sending resounding and thunderous booms echoing across the water as they burst in a pattern of red, green, and finally yellow.

The three flashes of light reflected off the couple on the roof of the Southeast Estate. First, they illuminated Sam’s fingers dancing across Mabel’s cheek; then, his lips pressed softly against hers.

The final shell, shining as brightly as the sun, showed Mabel’s arms wrapped around Sam’s neck as she pulled him towards her, enthusiastic and happy.

“Eh,” Dipper shrugged, turning around and leaning farther back against the tree as he squeezed Pacifica more tightly against him. “Our first kiss was better.” The barrage of fireworks continued, luminous, violent, and beautiful.

Pacifica’s laugh, high and clear, echoed through the serene and chirping Carolina night.


End file.
